Melted & Blown Away

I melted last night. I was rocking my sweet baby girl and trying to get her to go back to sleep when she looks up at me, pulls out her paci (see sidebar below) and gives me one of her sweet wet kisses. She lays her head back down for a moment and then raises up to repeat the process. This time however, she gives me her kisses, stops, smiles and says..."Lau U" (translation...Love You!). I melted. Right then and there. Is this what everyone told me to wait for? Is this what I was really praying for all those nights through tears of disappointment & near hopelessness? God knew this was coming and it was coming just for me. What a precious gift I was not expecting! I can't wait to get there one day and give Him my kisses and tell Him I "lau u". I know He is just waiting for that moment with me, His daughter!

I was also blown away. As El would not go back to sleep, I brought her into our room for a moment to snuggle with momma & dada so she wouldn't wake up KG. After giving her kisses to her dada, she pulled up her blankie and laid her head on my stomach to sleep. As I played with her hair, as my mom, aunt & Grandmurna have done so many times in my life to get me to sleep, I wondered...did I grow up this fast? This baby in front of my just looked like a little girl and not a baby anymore. Where is the time slipping away to? How can I hold on to this moment forever.

Sometimes, we have to take snapshots in our minds and not our cameras. This moment in time will be one of my most memorable "photos".

*Sidebar...yes,I did say PACI. I know your thinking, I have never seen a picture of that child with a paci. That's because she hasn't had one until now. She found one two days ago in her toys and is addicted! For some reason this silly bumblebee paci is the absolute ONLY thing that will calm her down right now as she cuts all four molars at once. Oh well, I guess we will deal with the consequences later. For now, we all need some sleep!

OH NO...she hasn't blogged in a while!

You are guaranteed some kind of entertaining story when it has been a week or more since I have blogged! Today is without a doubt no exception!

I am done...This is not what I signed up for...Although I say this all in jest, it is how I feel right now. To say these last two weeks have been the longest of my life would be an understatement!

*Disclosure: If you do not want to hear a bunch of self-loathing, skip to the pics! This is my blog and I need to vent right now!

So get to the point already right? Here is a little taste of what we have done the last couple of weeks:
Last Monday, you know that we went to the Dr. and both kids turned up with ear infections. No biggie...been there done that multiple times. As the week went on, Elliot started feeling worse and so did her momma! Wednesday night while bathing her, we notice her cyst on her chest was slightly swollen and red. (She has had a small cyst since she was born that has never caused any problems...until that day!) Thursday the cyst started swelling even more and the Ped's office wanted me to bring her in on Friday to take a look at it. We go see Dr. Foster Friday morning and he switched her meds to help treat what looked like a simple infected cyst.

Meanwhile, I am starting to feel so bad I made the choice when they were done to drag them to the Dr. with me. Being I haven't been to the regular Dr. in 4 years for illness...you know I was feeling bad! So off we went, two babies, two Drs offices, two waiting rooms...ONE TIRED MOMMA! It ended up that I had let my allergies get out of hand and cedar is blooming (which I am terribly allergic to...who knew?). A shot, a z-pack & some allergy meds later...I am starting to feel somewhat "normal" again. Luckily while we were there, Dr. Fox, who is a college friend, looked at Elliot's cyst to see what he thought. He concurred with the treatment we were on and said to keep a watch on it but that it "should" be significantly better by Monday.

Skip to Sunday and we head to church. The kids did great in their class and we headed to lunch with some family friends. Elliot proceeds to SCREAM the entire time. Nothing would calm her down. Her cyst by now had doubled in size and looked like a golf ball under her skin. So we leave lunch and I have Ryan drop me off at the Drs office. To sum that experience up, it was an hour of screaming and another hour and a half of holding a sleeping little angel who just wanted to feel better. Two & a half hours later, we get in with the Dr. (Same friend who saw us on Friday thank goodness because he could see the difference it had taken on in just 48 hours.)

The first words out of his mouth were..."Why did you bring her to me? I am about to have to do something I DO NOT want to do!". That is comforting to hear...

I will spare you the bloody, ear deafening screaming details but 7 shots of Lydocaine and three incisions later, we find out that her cyst had abessed and she had a bad case of staph infection.
So you would hope that we just give her meds and that would be the end of it. Oh no my friend.

Staph means highly contagious until she is healed and done with the meds. Staph means her & Keaton can share NOTHING right now. Staph means no sharing cups (impossible for my kids). Staph means separate baths in separate tubs. Staph means bleaching your whole house, washing a gagillion loads of laundry, germexing until your hands crack. Staph means I feel like a maid. Basically...STAPH SUCKS!

And the best part to top all of this off.....
Keaton went from 4 to 9 (almost 10) teeth in the last week and Elliot went from 4 to almost 9. Yes, we also cut 11 teeth last week in the midst of all of this chaos!

So if I am slow to return calls, emails, just being a bad friend in general...you now know why. And next week, watch out NWA...we will be hitting the town hard just to get out of this bleached covered house!

*No pity needed, just needed to vent this morning over my cup of coffee. Until then, here are some pics for you all!

*These are the cards the kids made for their daddy for Vday...

*The kids LOVE playing with Nana's pot & pans!

*Our little Linus

*Kissing Nana's boo boo...

Oh wait, see it, look close...it that a hint of blue sky? (Look fast because more ice is coming tonight...where is April when you need it?)

This is how I found the kids yesterday watching Mickey Mouse...

Gotta love snotty noses!

Vday 2007

Since I wasn't blogging this time last year, thought I would share these pics with you all. I can't believe what a difference a year makes!

So Much To Catch Up On!

Wow. A week can go by faster than you think. I didn't realize my last post was over a week ago. Sorry faithful blog readers!

I posted some random pics from the past few days. We had a first real family dinner on Friday night. No, it is obviously not the first time we have taken our kids out but it was the first time we went out to eat just the four of us! We are always out with friends or family and rarely are out without company...which we love...but Friday, it was fun to just have our little family out for a bite to eat. (And yes, that is an actual poneytail...our 1st!)

I had to post this pic for my brother since he can't get this out in CA. And since our family is sweet tea & coffee connoiseurs, you can see my kids were born right into their beverage heritage!

Saturday I got to enjoy breakfast out with the girlfriends. There is nothing better than good coffee, good pancakes and good girl talk! We have to keep this up, although we will be in need of a good night out soon too! I then came home and we had a fun day at home as a family. We took the kids to the neighborhood park and they loved it. I have a feeling that we will end up there for the majority of the spring/summer of '08.

Sunday was the photography conference in Tulsa. The conference wasn't near as good as the conversation there and back with my neighbor, friend & photo mentor Allison! She is a wealth of information for me and becoming such a huge support system. Thanks for inviting me and letting me tag along with you Al!

I have to admit, I wasn't as lost as I thought I would be at the conference. (I guess that is a good sign!) I did have that first day of school, first day on a new job feeling. You know, the one where you feel like everyone in the room knows you are new and have no idea what you are doing. Luckily, we made the decision not to take in our cameras (which most people didn't) but those who did were sure to cause some lens inferiority complex(LIC)! I guess for them, size does matter! (Yes, you can and probably are invisioning them correctly. That same 'ol yearbook photographer we all had with the creepy, 20 year old mustache and bad breath. He was there with his sizeable lens!)

I quickly realized what I like and what I don't. I will never be a studio, glamour shot, manufactured lighting kind of photographer. Sure they can get some amazing shots, but wouldn't you rather have what is real and what you see everyday. Don't you want to see your kids cute freakles and that cute little mole above her lip instead of looking like a porcline doll? I also realized that I love kids photography and at the same time, cool unique photography that really captures a story. I would also kill to go back to Florence right now with my camera in hand and take pictures til I can't see straight. Travel & photography...I think I have found my heaven.

With that said, there will much more to come on this front. I am praying diligently for direction as I have this stirring I cannot shake.

Until then, and not to be Debbie Downer, we will be home...sick! We finally went to see Dr. Cadle today and found out the Miss El has a left ear infection and Mr. K has a right ear infection. No wonder we have had three nights with little sleep! Luckily with the confirmation of infection comes antibiotics! We dosed up during our bathtime and are looking for a peaceful night. God is so good because He has a steady rain and ever so faint thunder just outside my window. I have downed two Benedryl for my symptoms and it is about time to carefully study the back of my eyelids.

I almost forgot. Elliot found a new love.

Look at her looking into his eyes so lovingly.

This was just one of MANY kisses that followed...

So who was she so admiring???

Yep, like Father like Daughter! (Luckily tonight she switched from Ronnie to Jesus!)

Snowdays & Sundays

We finally had a good snow this week and by good, I mean more snow than ice! We ended up with about 5 inches at our house and it was beautiful. And in true Arkansas fashion, this weekend was mid 60s with a prediction of 75 for tomorrow. No wonder we all stay sick 9 months out of the year here! So last week we were cooped up in the house with my camera to keep us all entertained.

This was the kids 1st real experience out in the snow. Although we didn't go all gungho like we will in the future (I am CRAZY about snow days!) they did get out one afternoon for a little while to experience a whole new phenominom for them. They loved it and did great until sis got cold. She loved eating the snow and Keaton loved his new trick of stomping on it. I think we have many days of sledding ahead of us...if we can just keep Elliot's hands warm.

We had a great weekend, home, as a family & enjoyed the day together Saturday for Ryan's birthday. Followed up with a great day at church today and some more teeth coming through, life is good! Here are some pics pre-church this morning. I had to get the camera out because the kids just looked too cute this morning , if I do say so myself. Enjoy (and yes mom, I will be sure and send these to you)! Thanks for the great hat Linny!

Happy Birthday Baby!

We love you...

snot & all!

Happy 31st!

We Love You!

Mel, KG & EE