Thursday, October 28, 2010

Race for the Cure



On Saturday, I will be running in the Race for the Cure 5K with my sister Annette and sister in-law Lisa. A few of my friends have joined our team and are running with us. We are going to have a great time! Over 14,000 people have registered for the race! This is a great race to be Annette's first (and hopefully not only) 5K. Unfortunately, on Tuesday, she injured her shin and has been in a lot of pain. We may need to wrap her leg real well or worst case scenario, load her up in Dalton stroller but she's going to do the race!!!!

To commemorate our inaugural family 5K, we had shirts made that say...Check your 'maters 2010 and on the back S.A.L.S.A -N- for a cure. SALSA N is the letters of the names of everyone racing on our team. Shannon, Annette, Lisa, Someone who backed out (Stephanie), Alda/Ana and Nancy. What a great bunch of girls!

I will be collecting money until Nov 15 so if you are able to donate, please go to my page and support our efforts, as well as research for Breast Cancer!

http://race.raceforthecurememphis.org/site/TR/Race/General?px=1262563&pg=personal&fr_id=1100

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Dalton turned 12!!!



I know you are going to find this shocking but my little guy isn't so little any more. He turned 12! Even before he turned 12, his voice started changing, he's getting taller and his face is looking pre-teen. Before I know it, he's going to be taller than me. He's turning into such a handsome young man!








Dalton with his friends in the back yard.














For his birthday, he had some classmates come over and watch a movie in the backyard on the big screen. They watched Diary of a Wimpy Kid. They ate pizza, decorated their own "popcorn" cupcakes, ate popcorn and lots of candy. I'm sure those parents LOVED me! The kids that came were just precious and Dalton loved every minute playing with them. His best buds Austen and Madison came and that made his day!

These are a few of my favorite pics of my guy this past year.





First week of school.



Last March, Dalton and Mrs. Dye were green eggs and ham.



Dalton dancing with the ladies at Ally's wedding.





Dalton at the Star Wars concert.




Dalton being Dalton.

Dalton doing one of his favorite summer activities.





Sunday, September 5, 2010

Ethan Farley

Please keep my friend Rhonda Farley in your prayers. Today her precious 7 week old son passed away at 2:50pm. In her words, he can now be in heaven with his brother and sister where his Papa can watch over him and he is no longer sick or in pain.

Friday, September 3, 2010

baby Ethan

Things with Ethan are not good. His organs are shutting down and they don't think he'll make it through the weekend. Still holding out for a miracle. Please pray for Rhonda Hall Farley and her family.

Monday, August 30, 2010

Enjoying 3 at school...


I am enjoying having all 3 kids at school. Week 1 the kids were ready to go. Channing was just dying that she had to wait til Wed. Then she was super upset that she didn't get to go back until the following Monday.




The first full week of school for the boys was a success. Sullivan got a couple of check marks but is that really a bad thing? They were for talking so I'm kinda glad he's already found a buddy. Now he's just got to work on the talking thing...or at least getting caught at it.

Dalton definitely has his work cut out for him this year. Lots of homework for 5th graders. His teacher really wants to push him this year...which means I'm going to be busy with lots of homework this year too. You would not believe how big he has gotten and how much he's changing. At our last checkup he's almost 4'11" and 85 lbs! And his voice is changing. He's squaking all over the place. Next Craig will have to teach him to shave. He has a little mustache growing!

Channing Gail's first full week of school went great too.

On the first day, she allowed me to walk her to class and asked for me to eat lunch with her. After lunch though, she was ready to go home and got a little upset when she realized she had to go back to class and I was going home! Day 2 I got to walk her inside school but she said she didn't need me to walk her to class...her brother would do that!
She still wanted me to eat lunch with her so I caved after she said she'd miss me if I didn't eat lunch with her. How can one turn this down? Day 3 she said she didn't need me to walk her inside. I could drop her off in the car line and she'd be just fine. So, I'm officially pulling up in the car line and dropping all 3 off. ***tear***



Pink day


Green Day


Blue Day


Red Day

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Please Pray for my friend Rhonda's 3 week old twin Ethan

Ethan update: He has multiple brain bleeds in his capillaries, mainly on the right frontal lobe. They predict he will have cerebral palsy and some other deficits but unsure at this time. He also has swelling on his brain. He is on continuous plateletes and fresh frozen plasma to try to help with clotting. My friend Rhonda made it clear tonight that they love their son and are willing to take care of him no matter what deficits he may have. Ethan has fought this far and they are not going to give up on him now. At this time they are saying he is not a candidate for a liver transplant because of the brain issues.

Sunday, August 8, 2010

School starts this week

The kids start back to school this week. I'm going to miss having them around but they are ready to get back to some structure. Channing Gail (as she wants to be called this year at school), only goes on Wednesday this week for a staggered day of kindergarten. She is so excited about kindergarten she can hardly contain herself. My last little one is starting school. Where did all my time go? What's next....college?

Saturday, August 7, 2010

Praying for my friend Rhonda

Please pray for my friend Rhonda. She had twin boys at around 32 weeks, I think and one of the little fighters (Ethan) is really struggling. Diagnosed with enterovirus and having difficulty with liver and kidneys. Praying for miracles!


update from friend:

They are having a hard time getting Ethan's bp up and stablized tonight. There is also the detection of a heart mumor that was not there before. My heart is absolutely breaking but we are never going to give up on him or God. We are seriously considering the transfer to Cinci...Jamie is consulting with a specialist from there this evening to help us in our decision.

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Happy 5th Birthday Channing Gail!


Last Sunday my sweet girl turned 5. She even starts kindergarten next month. She thought she got to start Kindergarten on Monday since she's now 5. She doesn't quite understand how all that works.

For her b-day she received a new bike but there aren't any birthday pics yet because her bday party is being delayed until Aug.



I wanted to wait until school started so she could invite her new friends from school. So, look for pictures coming after Aug 21. We are having a Hannah Montana impersonator come put on a concert for the girls. I'm so excited. Channing invites everyone she meets to her party! Who knows how many little girls will be there. Some of Sullivan's former 2nd grade classmates are dying to come.

Here's a few pictures of things that kept her busy this past year as a 4 year old...

At the ball with Grandpa...


Posing for a photos for a friend's clothing line...


competing in a cheer competition with young champions...


Playing thing 1 at brothers' school....



gymnastics at the Redbird game....


learning to swim.....



Graduating preschool!

Saturday, June 19, 2010

a shopping adventure


So...a couple of weeks ago I received a notice about an amazing warehouse sale. So amazing I really wanted to go and after some conversations with some girl friends, we decided it was "worth the drive." Because the sale was a 5.5 hour drive, we decided to leave at midnight to get a good jump on the line. On the way down, none of us got any rest as the excitement of the sale grew. It also didn't help that we drove through a pretty ominous looking storm. As Meredith put it, "there was a low cloud line" that kept us watching.

We arrived at the sale at 5:30am. None of us were expecting much of a line but were surprised at the 30-40 people camped out. The sale didn't start til 9:00am. Meredith and Kim opted to make a Walmart run to go to the bathroom and buy some chairs. I think this was a ploy to get out of sitting in line because they were gone a loooooonnnnnnnnnggggggggg time. How convenient! Of course the stares they received when getting back in line were all but friendly! Tracy and I made a McDonald's/potty run as quickly as possible to not upset that many people.

It's hard to tell how many people were now behind us but the line was impressive. Glad we got there when we did. We sat there chatting with others in the line to get the inside scoop and a game plan. Many of these women come year after year and not to buy for themselves but for their consignment stores and ebay. We were a little afraid that we weren't going to find anything but boy were we wrong.

Even though the sale wasn't supposed to start until 9:00am, they opened the doors around 8:20am. It caught everyone off guard. Meredith and Kim were just about to take the chairs back to the car when the line started moving. Kim looked around like what should she do with our stuff. Tracy and I chimed in....leave it! So, the shopping began!

We had a game plan....divide and conquer. I was to get size 5/6 girls. When I got in there, I got turned around and couldn't figure out where to find what. In all the excitement I think I became discombobulated! I regrouped and started grabbing. Let me just say, it was totally worth it.

At one time I had more in my arms than I could hold. I found a table top but didn't want to leave it in fear that someone would take something. Then we started taking turns going in for more! The pile of clothes we had was massive and there was no way we were going to be able to buy all that. So eventually the weeding out for the favorite outfits began.

Kim started feeling bad from the lack of sleep but the rest of us went to work. There wasn't much room but eventually I was able to make those difficult decisions of putting some stuff back. I had also grabbed shorts for Dalton b/c they were elastic waist. I found that I had several matching outfits for the 2 so I had to go back in for Sullivan some shorts. I was happy to be able to find so many matching outfits for all 3. I think all of us girls that went were able to find matching outfits for all our girls and boys. I don't think we left that sale until around 2:00pm.

We were exhausted as we made that long drive home!




I couldn't wait to get my family in their matching outfits! I even found Craig some matching shorts. They looked so cute I went online and bought me the matching dress. Not at the same awesome price I got at the warehouse sale but I loved matching the family.






I'll definitely make this trip again if possible!



Monday, May 31, 2010

Our first slumber party


Since Sullivan didn't want a big party this year, he selected 4 friends to come over for a sleepover. He would ask me every hour how much longer until his friends arrived. He just couldn't wait. Once his friends arrived, we ate pizza and headed out to the back yard for some water fun. The slip n slide was there as well as 6 water guns for the kids to battle. That was lots of fun. I even had to add to the excitement a little.








After we were all soaked and after a game of duck duck goose,

we dried off to make ice cream sundaes and to sing happy birthday to my little guy.



The singing was his LEAST favorite part. After ice cream, it was time for presents and a movie....Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs then on to bed.



Sullivan and Darrius left the movie early to do a little reading on Sullivan's new Super Mario game book. All the kids slept up in the playroom and did pretty well. There were a few mumbles about forgotten eyedrops and a forgotten sleep medicine but beyond that, no requests for home. The boys enjoyed chatting upstairs but Sullivan was ready for bed and asked once if he could go to his own room to go to sleep.

Craig was able to get all the boys settled down and after a few minutes of Craig sitting up there, they all went to sleep (before midnight.)

All in all, I think it was a pretty successful evening and Sullivan enjoyed his first slumber party.

(Of course, little Ms. Channing wants to know when she gets to have a sleepover....she was told not until she's 8. Wonder if that will work?)