The Greatest Gift

Please watch this video and get saved today , salvation is the greatest gift . Merry Christmas !

Our First Advent Calendars

Until I started reading blogs I never knew what an advent calendar was , since then I have wanted to make them but was always to busy , well this year I just made time to do it , one of them that is the other one was store bought .

Since I never had anything like this growing up I think I was more excited than the kids were about Dec. 1st rolling around , but after that first day Riley has been getting up every morning and just can't wait to see what she gets for that day , I think the calendars also help kids wait more patiently for Christmas . 

I am definitely going to make this a tradition at our house and hopefully will get to make some more next year .

These are just Christmas goodie containers I found these at ABC distributing  , my mom has an account there and sometimes I order stuff on her account but you get exactly 24 of these for around 5.95 .

I made this one out of toilet paper and paper towel rolls , I just put scrap booking paper around them and then  a cardboard bottom on each one , I think they look kind of like candles , you can also use fabric if you want to but I have a lot of scrap booking paper .

I also used ticket stubs and to my surprise Riley liked these better than candy or prizes , on the tickets I wrote things like Ice cream , board games with mom , her favorite was a trip to pet smart .

Leah's New Smile

I can't believe how long it's been since I last blogged , not only have I been busy , but a lot has been going on as well . To name a few we have moved , we needed something a little bigger and that took about a month just to get moved in and I got pregnant again but I had a miscarriage , before my body could heal from that I caught a bad virus and on top of that a uti , I am slowly getting back to normal .

Well it didn't take me long to fall in love with Leah's new smile , after they took her off the codeine which she was allergic to she did better each day , it didn't take her long at all to get used to the no no's but she never got used to sleeping in the car seat , and she has never nursed her bottle again but I'm not to concerned about that because they will be taking it away again for the next surgery , so it will be easier for her if she doesn't learn to take her bottle back .

I hope everybody had a happy thanksgiving , I didn't cook this year we ate at my moms , which reminds me Dallas is taking culinary , she has discovered that she loves to cook , I am glad , actually she is teaching me some things I didn't know , I wish I would have taken culinary , I didn't even know how to cook when I got married , the first few days we had chef boyardee . For thanksgiving Dallas made pumpkin bread , pumpkin cobbler and pecan pie , I was very impressed , I have to say she is very good :)

Here are some pictures that I took for Christmas cards this year ....I will post again soon !!!!

Surgery Update !!!

Sorry it took me so long to update but I am exhausted , the night before the surgery I woke Leah up this time for her bottle so she wouldn't be so hungry and I only got 2 or 3 hours sleep . The surgery went fine she was in there a little over 2 hours , I was shocked when I first saw her she looks so different , I was happy and sad at the same time , it will take me a little while to get use to her new face , she is so beautiful though , the surgeon did a great job , I love her little nose . Now that the latham is gone Leah is saying Mama every time she is feeling pain :( .

Well by that evening she was smiling at Riley and slinging her arms and slapping her No No's together but we didn't know that today was actually going to be her worst day , when we got up this morning her face was swelled and she wouldn't open her mouth to take her pedialyte , her diaper was not very wet either so they put her back on I.V. and they were giving her to much pain medication so right now everything is fine , they said the swelling in her eyes is probably because they had to do so much to her nose , because her cleft was so different . Well I will try to update more later , here are some pics ......

 This was right after the surgery.

This was the second day that her face started to swell.

This is her cleft repair bear they gave her , see the stitches on it's lip ? I thought this was so cute .

This is the bottle we have to use , so far it hasn't been that bad , I think she may get use to it once she starts feeling better .

Leah's Next Surgery

Leah's next surgery is in the morning , this is her lip and nose repair she will be in the hospital for three days . We will be here for a week , I don't know how this surgery will be , it's going to be rough , I have to feed Leah through a bottle with a tube in it and also she has to wear something called No No's that will keep her from touching her face , she is going to hate that :( and also she has to sleep in her car seat , she can't lay flat because her face will swell , and this is for 2 weeks , it's going to be a long 2 weeks . Leah has been so happy tonight , playing and laughing , it makes me want to cry knowing what she is going to go through tomorrow , well I will keep everyone posted , please pray for Leah .

Eggheads

This summer we made eggheads , these are a lot of fun . what you will need -
Raw eggs
a needle
Egg carton
Grass seeds
Potting soil
Permanent markers.
First , use a needle or small nail to make a hole about the size of a quarter in one end of an egg , then drain the egg and rinse out the shell . Carefully draw or paint funny faces on the shells and put them in the egg carton , use permanent markers so the colors won't bleed when you water the hair . Use a spoon to fill the shells with soil , then plant the grass seed , moisten the soil , cover with plastic wrap and place them in a sunny window until the seeds sprout . Style the hair into pigtails or buzz cuts , We made pigtails on a couple of ours but then Riley decided they all needed buzz cuts . I got my grass seed at the hardware store , all you need is a handful , it's a lot cheaper that way .

Leah's First Surgery

Leah had her first surgery , it went well only I didn't really know what to expect . I was led to believe that she would be nursing her bottle again in a couple of days , so I would like to share my experience with others so they will know what to expect just in case you don't want any surprises . First off this is painful Leah screamed and cried a lot , she was on Ibuprofen and Tylenol but your not supposed to give babies Ibuprofen under the age of 6 months so after the second day I had to stop giving her that but I had to keep her on the Tylenol for a while because the latham after a day or two can cause sores on the throat and tongue which makes babies feel like they have the strep throat , I also didn't know I was going to have to force feed her , I have never had to force feed before it can be emotionally stressful , you have to try to keep your baby from getting dehydrated , Leah would fight me every second when I would try to feed her so I couldn't get 3 ounces in her like the doctor wanted me to do so I came up with a plan to give her an ounce every hour and it worked . Another thing is I did not know that I was going to have to tighten the screw in this thing two times a day , this was a bigger shock than the force feeding but I am doing it , someone told my mom that they didn't think they could do that to their child , well that thought crossed my mind to but a mother will do what she has to do for her child , when I first started I didn't know what I was doing I just did it because I had to , I guess lately I have done a lot of things I never thought I would be doing , but it's really not as bad as it may seem , the first 3 days are the worst , I think by the 8th day Leah was starting to get back to her normal happy self and I am getting used to cleaning and tightening the screw even though I will never like doing it , I was not looking forward to the next surgery but I can't wait until this latham is taken out , even though Leah is already used to it now , I don't think I will ever be , when Leah first started taking her bottle again voluntarily I still had to squeeze it and help her , but after she got used to it now she is taking a 4 ounce bottle on her own so no force feeding or squeezing now :) . Most babies only have to wear a lathem for 3 weeks but in Leah's case it's going to be about 8 to 10 weeks but it will probably fly by , I will put a picture of the latham on here after her next visit to have it cleaned , I did however manage to take her for her 3 month picture before her surgery , Leah smiles most all the time , whenever I see her beautiful smile it makes me smile no matter what kind of day we are having , she actually smiled once right after her surgery but that was before the anesthesia wore off . GOD BLESS everybody and thank you for your prayers ......Dawn.

Happy Mothers Day

Our Easter Sunday

We had a wonderful Easter Sunday , we started our day by reading the Easter story of course and after that we listened to a sermon ( The hoax of good Friday : by Pastor Anderson ) one of my favorites . We still have not found a church yet , after the sermon we sung hymns and then went to my parents house for dinner . We had such beautiful weather , Riley and I played on the swing set together and spent most of the day playing with caterpillars one of Riley's favorite bugs :) . Update on Leah - we went for our first visit to the hospital in Chattanooga , they have some of the best surgeons in the world there and people go there from all over the world , when I looked at some of our surgeons work that he had done I was amazed , he is not a people person , he doesn't talk much but he is serious about his work and very good at what he does and that's all that matters . I liked it there , Everybody was so nice . I am very thankful that they pay for our motel room and gas , Leah's first visit was just to plan what they are going to do , we found out that her cleft / palate is unique and she is not going to have her 4 front teeth , but they can fix that when she is a lot older , she also has to have a lathem which will pull her gums together and line her jaw up before the surgery . I love Leah's face , I will probably cry after her face changes , they say a lot of parents do . I hope everybody had a good Easter as well . I am not able to leave comments on blogs right now , either my computer is messed up or my Internet , I don't know what the problem is . Leah has been such a blessing , she is such a good baby , when she does not have a belly ache she just smiles and laughs all the time , sometimes when we are in bed she just looks up at me and smiles before she goes to sleep , I really get behind on the house a lot where I sit and hold her , I lose all track of time , Riley loves being a big sister , she wants to help give Leah her bottle and change diapers and she loves to help give her a bath , well here's some Easter pics and God Bless .....

Leah Is Finally Here .....

I am sorry it took me so long to post , I have been resting when I can and busy when I can't . Leah was born on Feb. 24th , I had woke up that morning with a fever and aches and pains , I knew I had come down with something , I told my mom that I hoped I didn't go into labor that day because I was so sick , but Leah had been pushing down all that day . By the time evening came I was in so much pain , I didn't know if it was labor pains or pains from whatever sickness I had , I couldn't decide whether to go to the hospital or not . I believe it was around 9:00 that night when I realized that the pains I was having were about 5 minutes apart , I said a prayer before leaving the house , hoping that this was the real thing .

My contractions were not that bad on the way to the hospital , I was thankful for that because my husband always obeys the laws of the road , even when a woman is in labor :) . When I got admitted into the hospital , they said I was definitely contracting , I couldn't believe how mild my contractions were , but the next thing I knew the nurse came in and said the Dr. wanted to get things rolling and to get this done , she said they were going to break my water and give me pitocin , I had never had this done and couldn't understand why they were going to do it , unless it was because I was sick , well to make a long story short Leah was out in under 3 hours , I was so relieved , and I just fell in love when I saw that face .

I had to stay in the hospital an extra day , to make sure Leah was eating enough , she could not latch on to nurse so I have to pump and give it to her in a special bottle , it takes her a while to take a bottle because she has to take breaks , she gets tired . Here are some pics of her first day at home , I will post some more soon ....Thank you for all your prayers and God Bless .

Almost Time .....

My last ob appt. was on valentine's day , everything is great , she said hopefully I will go before my next appt.
I  hope so , I'm actually ready because I am to the point where I can't get around very good or do much of anything .
She said I didn't have to have the surgery after my delivery , she wants to wait til later and see if the cyst will go away after my delivery , so I was glad to hear that , I didn't want that to interfere with me breastfeeding Leah .
I have 10 days to go I think , I weigh 150 pounds now , I was 158 when I had Riley . I really can't believe how many comments I have had about how big I am with this pregnancy , (not on my blog ) but in person , I usually don't pay attention to it , I figure most people just say things without thinking and maybe some people just don't have compassion , but I received 1 comment even from my specialist that I thought was rude and not very professional .
Which reminded me of the website (my ob said what ? ) I have only been there one time and read a little of things that have been said and I can believe it .
I hope my hospital visit will be a good one this time , last time I got an I.V. infection , and we had to ask them to clean my room and bring me clean sheets , I will be going to the same hospital , I don't have much choice , my doctor wants me to go there , probably because they are supposed to have the best staff .
I pray that things will go well , I just don't like staying in the hospital , usually by the second day I am begging them to let me go home :) , but I know that God is with me and watching over me , so I'm not to worried this time .  

I know this post is not exciting , but I thought I would update , hope to do more post soon if I can find the time , Here is a picture and I hope everybody is doing good :) God Bless !!!!

Recent Scrap Pages !

Here are a few scrap pages I've finished lately ...

My scanner is not working to good right now , it's messing up all my pics , I think it's time for a new one , so these might be a little blurry . This is Riley's tree frog we found last year in our yard over the summer ...

This one is an older picture of Dallas , I am usually behind on my scrap pages because sometimes I don't get to do it that often , but lately I've had a chance to catch up on a few ...( Dallas says some of my scrapbook pages are cheesie)...

This was my birthday last year and I'm just finishing it and its almost my birthday again , I make a scrapbook page of myself every once in a while , because I'm making it for the kids , I know kids like scrapbooks about them but I think when they get older they would love one of there mom or dad to , or other family members as well . God Bless ....

Getting Ready !!!!

Well just an update to let everyone know that I'm still here . I have been having contractions off and on for a while now , I am moving so slow lately . I get so emotional during my last trimester , I have been so stressed and short fused , I have even caught myself complaining lately which is not like me at all , I have been praying about this , and today was a lot better , I think just getting to go outside made me feel a lot better , GOD gave us a beautiful day today , I finally got fresh air . This winter has been so cold and snowy . Dallas has helped me out so much , I'm so glad that she has had a lot of snow days because I have needed her , today she cooked supper and baked a cake all on her own , she did a great job . Took the kids to the dentist the other day , Riley's teeth are great but Dallas has to have braces . I checked out a book on breast feeding at the library , It was helpful but not a lot of info on babies like Leah , so I called the health dept and talked with a really nice lady and she was kind enough to mail me a booklet which was very helpful , it seems that babies with cleft lips or palates need mothers milk more than ever because it keeps them from getting sick the first year and it can keep them from getting middle ear infections which they are prone to and it can keep them from getting an illness when they go into the hospital for surgery , also it may take a lot longer to get them to breast feed and you have to be patient , but there is a lot of different positions to try and hopefully I will get a good lactation specialist that will help me even after I leave the hospital . If for some reason she can't nurse I am still going to try to give her breast milk , sometimes they have to make them a special bottle . I don't know why I have waited so long to try to find a breast pump , it seems this pregnancy has gone by so fast , I'm behind on a lot of things . Also update on diapers , since the all in one diapers are so expensive in our country I ordered some from china off of eBay , they are called babyland and I did not research them until after I got them , but most people said that these diapers do not fit newborns and probably won't fit your baby for a while unless you have a big baby , and after they do fit they seem to have a problem with the sides coming out , which I think I could fix that with Velcro , which is what they should have done when they made them , but after researching all the diapers I had already decided to go with prefolds , but I will keep the all in one's for later . I really like prefolds from what I have learned , they are cheaper and you can afford them on any budget , and from what I have read if you do laundry everyday you can get by with 3 covers and 2 dozen prefolds per child . Another thing I like about prefolds , you can choose your size , I went with the Bummis super whisper wrap , they are very thin and not bulky and very tough . Just make sure when you buy your prefolds that you get diaper service quality , the prefolds at the dept. stores are to thin like Gerber brand , I ordered my DSQ prefolds from Zoolikins and I researched it and believe that they are the cheapest , you can also get your Snappies from them, and the Bummis covers are only 11 dollars for white and almost 13 for a design . I have been practicing putting the diapers on a teddy bear , I know it sounds silly but it's all I have right now . I tried to practice with the teddy bear on my moby to but gave up on that til later my stomach is just way to big for that now . I already have my bags packed , I've never had a baby to come early yet but you never know , Riley has had a cough lately , I gave her homemade cough syrup which helped her through the day but not at night , I don't understand why it won't go away during the night , sometimes it chokes her so bad I have to set her up and shake her arm and pat her back to get her to breath , it scares me , I hope it goes away soon , I gave Dallas a break and let her go to my mom and dads to spend the night . Well post more later .......GOD BLESS .

Banana Caterpillars

You will need - 2 med. bananas
                        1/4 cup peanut butter
                        1/4 cup flaked coconut
                        4 raisins
                        thin pretzel sticks
1 - Peel and slice each banana into 10 slices . Make caterpillar by spreading slices with peanut butter and pressing pieces together .

2 - Sprinkle half of coconut over each caterpillar and press lightly with fingertips to coat . Attach raisins to one end with a little bit of peanut butter for eyes . Break pretzel sticks into small pieces and press between banana slices for legs and antennae . Makes 2 servings .

Kids can also be creative and add other types of sliced fruits to their caterpillars .

Happy Birthday Dallas .....

Wow I can't believe my baby is 15 years old today . Time goes by so fast , it's true what they say , little girls do grow up to be your best friends , because your my best friend . I am so proud of you , you try to win souls now and your having your own walk with GOD , I love your boldness and how you reprove people when it comes to GOD'S word , I love how you want to be a mother when you grow up and have as many kids as GOD wants to give you . You are growing up to be the kind of person I wanted you to be . I always hoped you wanted to grow up to be like me , but there are things about you that I would like to be more like you in some ways , you are such a beautiful person , I wish people could see how beautiful you are on the inside and not just on the outside .You truly are a blessing , I could not imagine being without you , just keep following Jesus . I love you ......love mom!!!!!

Happy New Year !!!

Happy new year and merry Christmas , I'm sorry that I didn't get to do the Christmas post I wanted to , 2 weeks before Christmas I started having terrible pains , I have a huge cyst on my right ovary that has never hurt me throughout this pregnancy until now . I never knew about cyst and I never knew how much pain that they can cause , I could hardly walk across the floor . The doctors told me they could do nothing for me unless it ruptures , which was very comforting , they only teach doctors now about conventional medicine and surgery , so after being in pain for a week and a half I decided to go on the Internet and see if there was a natural way to relieve the pain , and I found an article that said to drink 10 glasses of water a day and to sit on a heating pad , and it worked , I am praying daily that God will shrink this cyst or take it away , my doctor wants to do surgery after the baby is born which I don't want , I am trying out this diet that is supposed to shrink cyst , I hope it helps , if anybody has any suggestions please help me . I thank God that 3 days before Christmas I started doing a lot better , so I had even more to be thankful for , It was very hard for me not being able to do anything , being idle makes me crazy , but I tried to keep myself busy which helped a lot I caught up on some reading and scrap booking , I will post some of the pages soon , and me and the kids made banana caterpillars on the coffee table since I couldn't get off the couch , I will post that recipe to . I have enjoyed reading every one's blogs , I'm glad everyone is doing well . We had a wonderful Christmas and a great new years day . God Bless !!!