Hog Ball

My parents got tickets to a Hogs Basketball game and invited us to go along.

 

   The highlight of the night for Paige was getting her picture made with one of the Razorback cheerleaders AND getting to hold her pom poms in the picture!

Christmas Eve

We were supposed to meet all of my extended family at Aunt Jan’s house at 3 p.m. on Christmas Eve to have finger foods and open gifts before our church’s Christmas Eve Christ, Candles, and Communion service.  The day had actually gone pretty well and I had cooked the food for the afternoon, bathed the kids, started preparing to get everyone ready to leave.  This is where my breakdown began.  I had intended for Paige to wear her beautiful smocked, allbeit white Christmas dress with her red tights, and black dress shoes.  When I began searching for the dress to put it on her, I found that it wasn’t hanging in her closet as it should have been but it was wadded up in an overnight bag that she had stuffed into her closet instead of unpacking.  I wasn’t happy with her, but would only have to run the iron over it and that shouldn’t take too long.  Wrong.  As I heated the iron and set the ironing board up, I noticed several dirty spots on the (did I mention it’s) white dress!  And each of those spots was in a very visible spot on the dress.  This is where my fury kicked in.  I was so mad! Knowing there was no washing, drying, and ironing the dress in time, we had to search for another outfit for Paige.  Mind you this is all at about 2:30 and I’ve done nothing to my hair, I’m not dressed, and I have no makeup on yet.  The dress fiasco ended up taking up about 30 minutes.  Thankfully Ryan was easy to dress and Stephen was already done. 

Unfortunately, my stress didn’t end there.  I had asked Stephen to separate the presents that we needed to take that night.  Not thinking that would be a big deal, I left him alone to do that and started trying to fix my hair and get dressed.  Within moments, he had separated every single present that was under our tree and had them in piles around the living room.  While I realize now that he was just trying to make it easier in the long run for us, at that moment it put me under.  I lost it.  I couldn’t control my crying and the stress in my shoulders felt like I had a baseball under my skin on each shoulder. 

At this time, I knew being there at 3:00 simply wasn’t going to happen.  So I did what any self respecting nearly 30 year old woman would do…I called my mom crying.  She offered to come get the kids from us and go ahead and take them to Aunt Jan’s and I could have some quiet time and time alone to get myself ready.  I took my time and got myself together in about 30 minutes.  We go to Aunt Jan’s at about 3:40.  And it was fine from there on out.

For our extended family this year we decided to only buy presents for the great-grandkids.  We started drawing names several years ago with the adults, but in the past years we had basically just been exchanging gift cards…and while that ok, it was just getting impersonal and we’d rather give that money we would’ve spent on gift cards to our favorite charities.  Our family chose Arkansas Children’s Hospital because of the involvement we personally had with them in the past few months with Paige.  Additionally, our ongoing “charity” is Stephen’s football team.  We love those boys and we provide food, groceries, sweats, etc whenever they need them.

It took us longer to open presents than we intended so when we looked up, it was 6:40 and our church service started at 6.  It’s the first time we’ve missed in several, several years.  We left Jan’s and went to Mom and Dad’s for awhile, then headed home to get ready for Santa!

Rocking Chair-1 Ryan-0

I knew it would happen eventually.  Stephen and I are standing at church singing when I get the dreaded tap on the shoulder from the nursery coordinator.  She didn’t tell me what was going on while we were still in the worship center, but as soon as we exited I could hear Ryan screaming and the NC told me that Ryan had fallen in the nursery and his forehead met the solid wood rocking chair.  Apparently he tripped and the only part of him to meet the chair was his forehead, and nothing softened the blow. 

One of the precious elderly ladies that keeps the babies during nursery was so shaken up by it and was walking around holding Ryan and they were both just sobbing.  She was so apologetic and was worried Stephen and I would be mad.  Of course I reassured her that it was an accident and that we definitely didn’t hold her responsible in the least.  As soon as I saw the huge knot on Ryan’s forehead, I asked the NC to go get Stephen because he’s much better at handling injuries than I am.  I also asked her to ask a church member who is a doctor to come and take a look in case we needed to head straight to the ER. 

Fortunately, the doctor said that since the bump had “come out” which meant he was going to be ok.  She instructed us on the concussion symptoms we needed to be on the look out for and told us to keep ice on him as long as he could handle it.  Ryan + ice=no bueno.  He hated having it on him at all!  We did our best to put it on for a few seconds here and there, but eventually just gave up on it.  We gave him ibuprofen and prayed for the best. 

After lunch, Ryan seemed to be acting normally so we decided to lay him down for his afternoon nap as normal.  He went right to sleep and I was diligent to go check on him several times during his sleep.  When he woke up the bump’s swelling had gone down considerably and the bruising was coming on. 

His first official “boo boo” was a a big one.  And I hope they’re few and far between, but somehow I get the feeling that Ryan will be a walking boo boo before it’s all said and done.

Sunday Best

Since Christmas is nearing Paige wore her Christmas dress to church this morning and Ryan was looking especially handsome as well, so I tried to take a picture of them in front of the  Christmas tree.  This was the best we came up with, and as you can see…Ryan is NOT happy! Paige looks sweet and innocent, though! Expect to see Paige’s dress in many more posts-we will get our wear out of her smocked Christmas dress.

Life Saved

 

Today, this girl…

wrote this:

We’ve been talking a ton with Paige about asking Jesus into her heart.  She’s really always had the right answers, but it hadn’t sank in on a personal level for her. This past week has been super hard with her attitude, her words, her tone, and her temperament.  On several occasions she would tell me that “the devil is telling me right now not to obey you, Mommy”.  I knew then that it wasn’t just me wanting and desiring for her decision to be made, but that it was really on the verge of happening.  Stephen and I prayed diligently through the week that her decision would come on her own and that it would be real for her.  When she burst into my bedroom this morning, she shared that she had asked Jesus into her heart.  She was beyond excited…BEYOND.  Stephen and I are so proud of her and we’re looking forward to her baptism soon.