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.