i took the long way home....

not by choice, however. so yesterday i got a plane with brenna to head back home to my family who missed me very much, well dave did, i dont know about the kids, i think they enjoyed all the eating out, late nights and ice cream treats :) anyway, i got on a plane leaving fort lauderdale at 6 in the evening. it was delayed taking off because there were a few thunderstorms around us. thankfully i ended up in FIRST class with brenna. yeah! i havent flown first class since i was like 8 years old and flew with Mr. Baker to go visit Tara :) (fun memories) so first class was great. we had more room to wiggle and strech. once we finally take off the flight was smooth, the pilot even said we made up all our lost time. great for me b/c i had another plane to catch in atlanta to get me all the way home to TN. once we land the pilot comes back on and says that they do not have a gate ready for us so we will have a short wait. the short wait turned into a 40 minute wait on the runway. all this time i am watching the clock tick and thinking i am never going to make my connecting flight! i called dave for moral support. it was 9:30 by the time we got off the plane, my connecting flight left at 9:35! dave told me to run as fast as i could, so that is what i did. i had gate checked the stroller but didnt have time to wait for it so i left and just started running. we landed in concourse a, i had to be in d! then once i got to d i was gate 36! my legs were jello, my arms and back killing me from carrying brenna and my backpack. needless to say by the time i get there the plane is gone! i pretty much collapsed right there and balled my eyes out. i was so tired from running and so overdone to even think about how to make this all work out, i just cried. i called dave and he tried to calm me down. he does a great job of getting things done. he told me where to go and what to say. i was at the end of the line at the delta helps desk and the woman working the line asked everyone else in line to let me skip to the front! this lady was an angel! they had no more flights out last night to they gave me a 7 dollar food voucher, an overnight pack, a ticket for a flight in the morning and a hotel voucher. i had some fabulous friends in atlanta that were willing to come and get me if the airline would not pay for the hotel, but since they did, brenna and i slept at the clarion hotel in a bed together. first time i have EVER slept with any of my babies in the bed. it wasnt great sleep but much better than the airport floor or something. everything worked out for this mornings flight and we FINALLY made it home! so glad that is all done and over.
here is a picture of brenna sitting in the sink at the hotel playing with all the goodies. she was such a good girl, as usual! the lord has blessed me beyond measure with her personality and easy goingness. i am so greatfull.

growing pains

wow it has been a long time since i have blogged. it seems like i do that. blog consistanly for awhile and then stop again for awhile. oh well. life is busy. anyway, just wanted to brag on my little baby for awhile. she is 11 months old (which i have a really hard time with) now. she has been standing up for long periods of time without holding on to anything, she is waving and saying bye bye, if she sees shoes on the floor she tries to put them on, she holds the phone up to her ear and pretends to talk, she is starting to take some steps on her own, and she is just so stinkin sweet and cuddly :) she is so much fun these days, i cant believe how fast she is changing all of a sudden.

so this past week i have been in florida helping mom get back on her feet after surgery. she is doing really well, but still needs to take it easy for a long time. that will be hard for her. i am praying she doesnt overdo it even though she is feeling pretty good. it has been really nice being able to help her out. she has always been such a help to our family when someone was sick and recovering. it was nice to be on the other side of it and taking care of her this time. mom was even feeling good enough to do a little scrapbooking.

i was also able to get together with some friends while i was down here. it is so nice to be around lifelong friends. it is such a comfortable feeling. i am thankful to finally be making some friends in tn but it is always so nice to be in the company of old friends.

thats all for now.... i will try to keep up with this better.

picture post

so here are some of the pictures i have been meaning to post. for some reason i still dont have the part down. it takes forever and it seems like i always mess something up when i post pics. so here goes....



these are some pics of my art room and the desk and shelves that dave built for me. i still never got a chance to paint it all up but i am finally getting it set up they way i like it. i have two work stations so i can set up a desk with the sewing machine on it and i have a place set up to paint (although i have not painted since brenna was born , sad! )



these are pics from MOPS. the theme is Adventures in Mothering, like a carnival with roller coasters and stuff so we tried to decorate along those lines. there is also a pic of the project we did. we all made MOPS reminder magnets to put on our fridge so we wouldnt forget the times and dates.



this is a little dress i made for my girlfriends daughter. dave is out of town in Florida helping with hurricane stuff so i have been working on lots of projects. i havent sewn in a awhile so this simple little dress was a lot of fun. i love how the lining on the inside of the bodice turned out. i thought it would look really cute with a long sleeved shirt under it during the winter. i hope it fits :)

ok so that is all for now. i have to say Happy Birthday to TARA! love you good friend!

MOPS

Yesterday was our FIRST MOPS meeting! MOPS stands for mothers of preschoolers and is a nation wide christian organization to help and courage moms with young kids. my good friend carrie decided it was about time little ol' greeneville had something for us moms to do, so she started up a MOPS group. she asked me and 7 other ladies to join her on the programing team. i am the creative activities leader. we were all really excited but had not had anyone PRE register. we had NO idea how many ladies would be there. i had enough supplies for 28 projects. on the morning of, the ladies were just pouring in the door! God is GOOD and we were so happy so many moms were able to come. We ended up having 26 women and LOTS of kids. there is childcare for the kids so the moms can enjoy some adult conversation, good food, a speaker and a creative project. the women from the church that volunteered to watch the kids are such a blessing. so all in all we had a wonderful morning and i am so excited to see where the Lord is going to take our group this upcoming year.

I will post some pictures of our day a little later. I also wanted to give an update on brenna, she just woke up again as i am typing this but she only cried for a short time and is back asleep. we have been letting her cry it out and each night she cries less and less. it is tough but i guess it is working. thanks for your encouragement.

screaming baby

the last couple of nights brenna has been screaming when we lay her down. this is so frustrating and heartbreaking. brenna has always been a great sleeper and never a cryer. she has been such a great, easy going baby. and now all of a sudden i feel like i am back in the new born stage when they cry and you have no idea why and nothing seems to make it any better. it is hard to tell if there is something wrong or if she just wants us in the room with her. as soon as you touch her, she will stop but then as you walk away she looses it. her screams are so loud and sad, dave and i are both wore out. we have had some pretty long nights. usually around 11 or so she will finally fall asleep and stay asleep. tonight i layed her down and she went right to sleep but then 45 minutes later she woke up crying and it took us another hour or so to get get back to sleep. we finally just let her cry it out. it makes us so sad to see her upset and not know what is wrong, but it really seems like she is just wanting us in the room with her. i am praying for wisdom in this situation, i dont really know what else to do. we will see what happens later tonight......

brotherly love...

on the way home from florida we stopped at a McDonalds for lunch and to let the kids run and play at the playground. you never know what you are going to get when you go to one of those indoor playlands. i feel like i need to pray over the kids that they dont come home with some terrible virus or with a black eye because there is some 15 year old running up the slide. on the other hand, sometimes it is great and we are the only ones there and they love it. well yesterday it was packed with big kids!
raelyn didnt get 10 steps inside and got her fingers stepped on, she cried and then was ok. then it happened 2 more times. she was tired and over sensitive BUT garret was such a GREAT big brother and stuck right next to her the entire time. while garret and rae were eating their lunch, all the big kids left. there was one other young boy still playing nicley, when they were done eating they went back in to play. i could hear garret say to the little boy "you better be careful of that little girl!" it was so cute ane made me so proud. he really looks out for his sister.

labor day weekend

so we took another trip to florida to spend our labor day at the lake in Sebring. because of the hurricane out west we didnt have great weather but we all still had a great time. i flew down with brenna on wednesday evening and then got to spend thursday with mom shoping and scrapbooking. recently i have gotten mom hooked on scrapbooking and she has started a book for scott celebrating his life and all its special events. it was fun working with her. i brought some of my things down and did 2 pages with her. she already has a ton of stuff so it is fun to share and trade different supplies.

dave and raelyn stayed in tn until garret was done with school on thursday and then drove down to fl. they took their time and stopped in orlando to have some fun daddy time. we all met up in sebring on friday evening. even though the weather was overcast and rainy the kids still had a blast. there was no lightning or thunder so the kids just played in the rain whenever it would come. raelyn had a ball playing in the puddles and having the rain drip on her head.



we all drove back together on monday morning. on the way back home we stopped and had breakfast with my grandma joan in ocala. she has never met the girls and the last time she saw garret he was only one. we met at Bob Evens for breakfast. i really enjoyed my time with her. the kids were well behaved, we had nice converstation and the food was good. it made for a longer trip back home but was well worth it. i hope the kids will be able to spend more time with her again sometime. how special to have a great-grandma.