What a Month! (Introducing Julia!)

This past month will be one I will remember the rest of my life - for good and bad reasons.

It started with the passing of my Uncle Ralph. He died the Saturday before Julia was born. He was married to my aunt for 54 years. He was an amazing man of God and was always there for his family. We celebrated his life the afternoon before we celebrated the new life of Julia on Wednesday morning, March 31st.

Sweet, precious Julia was born on that Wednesday. We went in at 5:30 AM and she arrived at 7:56 (or was it 7:54???) by C-section. She weighed 8 pounds even and was 21 inches long. She had a head full of black hair! She is such a great baby and Audrey loves her! Michael and I are a bit love-struck too. I am recovering well from the C-section and the whole experience was perfect.

Then we brought her home...

On Easter Sunday, I started developing a rash. Long story short, I will officially be diagnosed tomorrow with an autoimmune disease called pemphigoid gestationis. It is super rare and usually strikes while you're pregnant but occasionally strikes a week postpartum. It is an extremely itchy and unrelenting rash that spreads all over your body. My immune system is pretty much attacking my skin. I got blisters that prevented me from holding Julia. Currently, I'm applying a cream to keep it at bay. I also can't touch my kids when I put on this lotion. Hopefully, on Monday, I will receive a steroid that will wipe out this rash. It will be a long road of tapering off the steroid...my goal is 6 months. The steroid will make me gain weight, have a round face, have insomnia, mood changes, damage to my bones, and other lovely stuff. But the women I've spoken to say that they still consider it a miracle drug. If we ever decide to have another child (we had been before this happened), it would most likely strike while I'm pregnant and be more severe. The baby could get it and would most likely be a preemie.

So that's been my month. I wish it could have been an all-pleasant experience, but I take what has been given to me. I love Michael, Audrey, and Julia so much and I'm very grateful for them. I'm thankful for my extended family, my church family, and other friends that have been so kind and generous. And I'm thankful that I'll have doctors taking care of me and trying to get rid of this thing that I developed.

Jenny's Memorial Service and the Stomach Bug

Jenny (see one of the previous post) passed away on Monday. I'm not in a place where I can write about how I feel, and will probably be that way during the rest of this pregnancy with these crazy hormones I have. They held a visitation service last night and will have the memorial service this afternoon at 1:00. You can see it online at http://www.livestream.com/rhchurch.

I had been behind with the updates on Jenny because the stomach bug hit our house. It started on the way home from Life Group on Sunday night with Audrey. I'm telling you, if the girl didn't show symptoms, you never would know that she was sick. We were all shocked to find out that she had anything wrong with her because she had been in such a great mood before and after! After a couple of trips to her room that night, we knew we were dealing with the stomach bug. She was completely fine the next day.

Then I got it. Considering I'm 34 weeks pregnant, this may be the worst I've ever felt. I was not going to let this get passed on to Michael, so I stayed in bed and did not move from there. That has to be the most uncomfortable place for a pregnant woman to be all day. I feel so bad now for all the women that have been placed on bed rest. The good news is that the swelling in my legs has all but disappeared! I'm feeling so much better now. It's time for me to clean up the mess from Audrey the Tornado and wash everything that I've touched in the last 24 hours.

Esther Bible Study

Okay, ladies! My friend, Meredith, had the fantastic idea to start an online Bible study. This is great on so many levels. Instead of making sure everyone can meet at the same time and place, we can just meet on the world-wide-web! If we have a sick child, we can still participate! We can include women from all over the world! Also, if you're like me, you can finish your reading a day late and still post your thoughts. Doesn't this sound great? It does? Well, just click that little button on the right and you can get more information and join us! Just leave a comment and Meredith will hook you up. We begin March 1st and we're using the Beth Moore study on Esther - It's Tough Being a Woman. (And, boy is it ever!)

Ok...I'm not getting the button to work, so just click HERE.

Getting Older

My baby girl is growing older. I guess that's good since I'll be getting a new baby girl next month. At the beginning of 2010, our biggest concern with Audrey was sharing and taking turns, probably pretty typical for a 24 month old. Hopefully, she is doing well with that now. We were also trying to mentally prepare her for being a big sister in a few months. At 25 months she decided to tackle a big one - potty training. She turned 26 months yesterday and now she is sleeping in her big girl bed in her big girl room. We were not pushing either of these, but she wanted to do both on her own time. Now, we are ready for Baby Julia to come next month! Unbelievable!

Record Snowfall

I must document this! The snow continued to fall in Dallas all of Thursday. I'm not sure how much we got at our house or how much Dallas officially received, but it shattered the previous snow record for North Texas in one day. I saw somewhere that it was over a foot of snow. My long-time Denver resident husband was not impressed, but I was! At least Audrey and I got to play in it while Michael worked. I asked Michael a lot of questions about "why this?" or "why that?" He was no help. Ex. Why was the sky pink at night? His answer - Maybe because it's about to snow a lot. I went to my parents for that one. It's the lights being reflected off the snow and clouds. Here are some of the pics from this morning of Audrey running around, putting snow on a very little snow man (I'm 8 months pregnant people, give me some slack) and eating snow ice cream.

What's Happenin'

It's snowing in Dallas today! Audrey has gotten over her fear of the snow and we played in it for awhile.

Silly Face

The kid says cheese, but does not smile...

Please don't pay too much attention to my makeup-free face.

Holding one of her favorite things - a football!

Back in January, we started putting Audrey's big girl room together. The pics are from my phone and they are dark and the colors aren't true, but you get the idea. It's still not 100% done because I need Michael to paint her dresser and drill some things, but his 80 hour work weeks the last month or so have delayed us finishing. She has only slept in there when she ran a fever all night and I slept with her.

Audrey is pretty much potty-trained. She even got me up at 2am to potty. Yay!

Michael's 30th birthday was Saturday. We had a great time hitting the town and I'm so glad he has joined me in the 30's group!

I'm at 32 weeks. In less than 7 weeks, Julia will be here! I'm so not ready, but I'm anxious to meet this sweetie-pie!

Praying for Jenny Bizaillion

I know many of you already know about this, so I'm reaching out to those of you that are not aware of what is going on in this young lady's life.

Jenny is a 31 year old mother who is fighting for her life. She couldn't get over the flu and was taken to Baylor Grapevine on Thursday. She got pneumonia and a blood infection. Her lungs and kidneys began to shut down. Her blood pressure dropped to almost nothing. Her circulation was so poor that they were very close to amputating her hands and feet. Many of her hours in the hospital has been on the wrong side of 50/50 chance of survival.

This is what God has done so far. He has improved her blood pressure. She's trying to get weaned off her 2nd of 3 bp medications. Her circulation has improved and they found a pulse in her feet. Her coloring has improved. (I believe she had a blood transfusion...lots of stuff happened last night, and I'm pretty sure they went ahead w/ the transfusion.) They were going to do a very risky gall bladder surgery because her gall bladder was in terrible shape. By the time the doctor traveled from her Keller home to Grapevine, her gall bladder had improved so much that surgery was no longer needed. She survived the trip to and from the CT machine and the scan showed no foreign infection and she didn't need surgery.

She went to ACU. I didn't know her, but I knew her brother, Josh Ross. She is just a year older than me and has a daughter. When I put myslef in her shoes, I just fall apart. This was just the flu and she's young, fit, and healthy.

Please, please, please pray for her. You can get more info HERE. You'll be asked to provide your name and email. It will give you updates on her condition. Please don't shy away from this because you're afraid to sign up. Jenny needs your specific prayers!

Possibly Potty-Training?!?

I have to eat my words from Monday. Audrey was very consistent showing potty-ready signs Monday night-Wednesday morning. So, we bought pull-ups and big girl underwear (in the theme of Minnie Mouse) on Wednesday and I just watched to see what would happen.

She made many trips to sit on the potty, but nuthin. I had to change a lot of pull-ups. We even had an explosion involving Mommy cleaning body, clothes, and floor. Wednesday was not fun, but not horrible. Michael told me that night that he thought she was more than ready to do this, so I continued.

Today, Audrey and I spent the morning running errands, so I wasn't expecting anything. I put her in a diaper for her nap. When I finally got her in a pull-up, she let me know she needed to potty. When it happened, it scared her! Of course! So I had to make it a really good thing. We made phone calls and did a lot of cheering. Let's see what the future brings! Come on Auds!

My Audrey!

So Audrey turned 2 last month. I decided that I need to write some things down about my little squirt before I forget about this time in her life. I remember how awful my brain worked as a fresh new mom and I know that Baby Julia will bring on another case of new-mommy-brain soon. So onto my little bit!

• She is SO silly! She loves to walk around making funny noises and making funny faces. She thinks it's terribly funny to try to lick you. Nice, huh?
• She can count to 13.
• She loves her Ma, Poppy, Mimi, and Pappa. She sings songs about them.
• She's a motormouth, but you probably won't witness that since she tends to be quiet around other people.
• She would eat Mac N Cheese over anything right now. Last week, it was oranges. 2 Weeks ago, it was bananas. Blueberries before that.
• She went to her first Dallas Stars game and fell asleep! She did cheer for awhile, yelling, "Go Stars!" Really cute.
• She loves hats!
• She's a fashionista. She chooses what she wears...up to bow color and down to the type of shoes.
• She is addicted to Curious George. We don't watch anything else.
• Her favorite song is either the Wheels on the Bus or Jesus Loves the Little Children.
• Her sleeping habits are dependent on how often she sees Michael. If he's working a lot, we struggle with sleep. If he's around, a sleep schedule is easily kept. She tends to sleep 2-3 hours for naps. (We try to start the nap at noon.) She usually sleeps from 8pm-7:30am. That bedtime seems to be too early these days.
• Her daddy is her world!
• She's still in a crib, but has a big girl bed waiting for her. She loves to play on it, but isn't ready for the transition yet.
• She's still in diapers and I don't really see potty training happening in the near future. She might surprise me though!
• She's had several hair cuts in her life already. I cut her hair last week and got a little scissor-happy. Oops!
• She has done much better at the doctor's office lately. We were seeing him every other week for awhile, so she began to get more comfortable. We don't have a scheduled visit for another year! Yay!
• She is sweet with babies and recently lets me hold them!
• She loves to care for her baby dolls.
• She loves to be clean. If she makes a mess, she immediately tells me. Yesterday, she walked into the playroom and said, "Mess!" She began to put away her toys. :)

Here are some pics since Christmas:

My parents' neighbor, Jan, made her this hat. Cute!

Playing in the jumphouse before the Stars game.

Asleep during the Stars game (3rd period, OT, and shootout!)

First White Christmas!

I am 30 years old and I finally got my first white Christmas! I can not describe to you how happy I was or how magical the snow made Christmas. I LUVED it! It was Audrey's 3rd Christmas, and it was a lot of fun! I think next year will be awesome because of what all she'll be able to comprehend. She knows now that Baby Jesus was born at Christmas, that Santa says "Ho! Ho! Ho!," and that people put up Christmas trees and put out Christmas lights. She calls the Christmas lights simply, "Christmas."

Audrey and I spent Tuesday through Saturday morning with the Halls. Michael had to work late until Christmas Eve, so he wasn't able to be at EVERYTHING, but it just made it more special to have him when he was there.

Tuesday, Audrey played with her cousins and made sugar cookies with Ma. She would rather eat the dough than make cookies. Silly girl.

Wednesday, the family put on a Christmas play at a nursing home. My brother-in-law's grandmother, Hot Rod :), lives there and helped plan it. My brother-in-law's nephews from California also joined our family in the play. I held Audrey during the play, so you will only see pictures of her before and after the play.

This is the pic I took with my phone right before we left, so that Michael could see his little angel!

Michael got off earlier than expected and got to see the play! It was a Christmas miracle!

On Christmas Eve, we had lunch with Michael's siblings and their spouses at Texas de Brazil! Michael's parents had given all of us a gift card for our birthday present to use during the holiday. This is a super-fun group to hang out with. Texas de Brazil is perfect for a hungry pregnant woman. How could it get more perfect, you ask? SNOW! It had snowed the entire time we were eating and was just beautiful when we left. We just had to spend some more time at Starbucks, sipping their holiday specials, and watching the snow. It was great!

When we returned to Ma and Poppy's, Audrey had just woken up from her nap. I bundled her up and introduced snow to my baby. She wasn't a fan. :(

This is how much of the day was spent. Audrey loved this tent and tunnel.

Playing the piano with cousin Kaley.

Silly girl kept purposefully closing her eyes when I took pictures. I finally got her with her eyes opened! The picture sequence is pretty funny. I may post that one day.

On Christmas Eve night, the grandkids get to open their stockings. She was excited!

Audrey leaving cookies and milk for Santa.

Views on Christmas morning. Audrey slept in late. She probably won't ever do that again!

Snow!

After we opened our gifts at home and had breakfast, we went back to the Hall's house and opened gifts there. Audrey was having a blast until she fell while eating a candy cane. Her chin and teeth got bloodied up. She was back and at it in no time!

Her aunts gave her a kitchen!

She loves her tricycle and helmet! The helmet was her favorite gift from Santa. She LOVES hats! I like how this picture makes her look like she's focused on the road.

Picture with all of the Hall cousins. Poor Andrew was not feeling well at all!

We also celebrated Matthew's 5th birthday. His birthday is the day after Audrey's. I met Mike, Melissa, and Matthew on the day he was born. Those 5 years have flown by!

On Saturday, we went to my parents' house to celebrate. Baby Brady was there and it was so great to HOLD him!

Audrey loved Brady! She treated him so sweetly. Lookin' good for Julia to come!

Audrey loves how silly Papa is. And he is silly.

I am so glad that we were able to see all the members of our family! I'm also glad that we were well during Christmas. The week before Christmas and the week after weren't very fun due to illnesses. I'm already wishing for another white Christmas for next year. Julia can't be left out!