We have had a wonderful week of moving in. Friday the Phiillips' and Dugan's came over and all the girls had so much fun playing. Bree especially loved doing flips with the girls through our, at the time, empty den. The guys moved a load while Bree was entertained with the company. We moved the rest of our stuff on Saturday. Now for the fun stuff...decorating the walls. Kerry especially loves this. Just kidding. I am such a pest trying to get him to help me hang everything. But I must say at this point in time I am completely happy with how the house looks on the inside. It has been a challenge trying to fit the furniture we had in a 2500 sq. foot home into a 980 sq. foot home. This has been very tough, but Bree's bedroom furniture all fit in her room, as did our bedroom furniture and our den furniture fit as well. And to top it off, I even have as much cabinet space as before. After putting all my kitchen boxes away, I still have 2 empty cabinets. So , I must say I am very surprised at how well everything is fiting. The one thing I do miss though is all the extra closet space I had. I guess I will just have to get rid of a lot of the junk we don't use very much. That should be a fun process. We are still working on unpacking the boxes in our closets, but other than that it is coming along very well. Hopefully we can hurry up and get the inside decor done so we can start fixing up the outside. You know how it goes, there is always a project when you own your own home. On a high note we had a great time at the Dallas Cowboys game last Sunday. We got started early with Breakfast at IHOP and then went straight to the game. It was a fun game. Audra and I sported our pink jerseys that we decorated with rhinestones. Since the boys played great we were proud to be wearing them. After the game we stopped at Northpark for dinner at Maggianos. Talk about delicous. Then we did a lil shopping and headed back to GS. What a great day. Go Cowboys!! Monday, Nov., 24th was a very special day for my family. It would have been my dear sister, Malena's 31st b-day. I spent the day remembering all the good times we had and found piece knowing she wouldn't want me to be sad but to celebrate the 26 years we did have together here on earth. Birthdays are huge in my family so it was hard for me not to think about what we would have been doing for her birthday. Actually, I can probably guess. She would have wanted to go out to eat and then my grandmother would have made her favorite, Italian creme cake. I miss her so badly. This time of the year is always very tough on my family. Although, I must tell you Bree delighted me the other night when I got her out of the tub, we walked thru the hall by my sister's picture and Bree pointed to it and said, "Nina." I was so proud. We always point to her pictures and tell Bree about Nina so I was thrilled that she was absorbing it. Malena loved children and I can only imagine how much she would have adored Bree. Sometimes it hurts me when I think of all Bree is missing out on by not getting to know Malena. In so many ways Bree reminds me of my sister. I love it when she does something to remind me of her. Not that I need reminding, I think of her everyday. I tell Bree stories of her and want her to know her thru me. Mom and Bree took a vase of flowers to the cemetery to honor Nina's birthday. It is a very special day to us all. We are super excited to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with all of our family and friends. And we can't wait to see everyone. Happy Turkey Day to everyone...please have a safe and happy holiday and know that I am very thankful to have u in my life. Please take this oppertunity to tell your family and friends what they mean to u, u will never regret sharing your feelings with them. XOXOXO

Moving In!!!

We are thrilled to say the inside of our house is finally ready and we will be moving in this weekend. Yeah!! Kerry has done an amazing job on getting everything ready and with some help from his Aunt Beth, Gramps and Bebe and Lannie and Brandon(actually getting this house ready has been quite a project for everyone) it looks great. Thanks to everyone who has worked so hard and donated ur precious time to help us out. Thanks too, ladies for being kind enough to lend us your husbands. I know everyone is so busy and we greatly appreciate all the help. I am so excited. We still have a lot of work to do on the outside, but the inside looks fabulous. Bree loves her room. aunt Beth did an amazing job painting it. When Bree goes to show someone her room she always walks in and says "EWWW" as she enters. I think she definately loves the pink design Aunt Beth did. I have been preparing her to sleep in her own room when we move in. That is the plan. So I tell her about her own room and how she will have her own bed and dresser and toy box and her own book shelf in there. Then I usually ask her if she thinks she will like sleepin in her own bed in her own room? She usually smiles real big and with the sweetest voice says"Yap." Although the grin she gives me kinda seems a little like she may be fooling me with her answer. I guess we will see how that all turns out. At bedtime she has to have Mommy and Daddy both there and then she will usually lay right down and go to sleep. sometimes she does a lot of flopping in her sleep or as she is going to sleep. We have to hold the laughter in sometimes. She flips all over. The girl is such a snuggler though. I love it so the transition will be tough for me too. This week has been very rapid. Yesterday we ate supper at Moms for my Grandfathers 75th birthday. We are so blessed by what he means to our family and enjoyed his day of celebration. Speaking of celebrating, I bet Gramps and Bebe will be doing some major celebrating now that we will be moving into our own home again. Thank you to everyone for being so kind and giving us somewhere to stay during the remodeling process. We greatly appreciate it so much!!! I do have to mention that we had a great time last Sat. night. It was our highlight of the weekend. We went to Shoguns(Mmmm) with Eric and Jen Tolar and Lannie and Amie Dugan. Talk about a wonderful night. Yummy food and a great time with friends. We also enjoyed church on Sunday and then lunch with Kerry's family. Bree loves her cousins so much. Crew and her are especially fun to watch. They love to sit right next to each other and at lunch Crew was so sweet to Bree. He was feeding her faster than she could chew. Talk about sweet. Bree loves all the attention the boys give her and she is so fascinated by Kate. She always wants to give her big hugs and kisses. Thank goodness Kate is use to it from her brothers so she tolerates Bree well. Other than that we have just been fiercely working on the house and enjoying all the football on tv. Which I must say I am super excited that we will be attending the Dallas Cowboys game this Sunday with Justin and Audra Phillips. I will definitely let you know soon about that experience. Bree is talking so much and has just the cutest personality. She is so much fun to be around. She lights up our lives so much. She loves to dance and is such a girly girl. Life must have been so boring before her. Mom and I took her to a GS high school basketball game which she loved. She kept saying "ball" everytime it would go by her. And the nochos we got at half time were a huge hit with her too. It is the little things that are so fun to experience with her. Hope everyone has a great weekend. Meanwhile, come see us in our new house if you are out and about GS. XOXOXO

God is SO Good! After much agony and prayer we went yesterday to Medical City Children's for Bree to have her VCUG and renal ultrasound. We arrived at 7:30am for the renal ultrasound. Thankfully Nona(my mom) and Bebe(Kerry's mom) both came with us. We were all really concerned about the procedures. The sonographer was super nice and being that I have 6 years of experience in scanning pediatrics I kinda knew what works best when scanning little ones. I always had my patients parents lay down with their children and talk calmly to them during the entire procedure. So that is exactly what I did. Bree actually layed on top of my stomach facing up and I held her hands and talked to her about what we wre doing. Amazingly this works so much better than holding your child down on the bed and trying to get them to lay there being still. So the sonogram went well. While waiting for the next procedure Bree was getting so hungry. She kept digging through her diaper bag saying "Eat." But I could not give her anything..it was so hard to explain to an 18 month old that she could not eat yet. Next we went in for the VCUG(Voiding Cystogram). The staff was wonderful!! The anesthesiologist walked us through everything and the pediatric radiologist let Kerry and I stay in the room for the procedure. Bree has had breathing treatments before so wearing the gas mask was no big deal to her. She sat there on the table wearing the mask so big like. Then when she was out of it the radiologist got started. She talked us through everything. Seriously she made it so much better for us than we anticipated. She showed us right where the reflux was and we got to see it all. Then she explained the best ways to treat the renal reflux and said that we caught it early and there was minimal damage to Bree's kidneys so her reflux could be managed with medication. She would not need surgery at this time. Thank you God for letting the nurses ans doctors be so great and for us discovering this when we did. When it was over Bree was so sweet. She woke up in recovery and looked around and seriously the first thing out of her mouth was "Snack!" So of course we got the baby some juice and gold fish. She came out of it beautifully. We were so glad. As I said before, God is so good! So now we are just thrilled that we know what we know now and we can treat it. We will be taking Bree to see a pediatric urologist in the near future and will be addressing the renal reflux and our baby is going to be okay!!! I am so relieved we did the testing and can go forward from here. Thank you for all the prayers and words of concern. We are so blessed by our friends and family. XOXOXO

Bree really got into her 2nd Halloween. She was a cheer leader. We met Audra, Justin, and Finlee downtown. Finlee was the cutest spider ever. The girls walked the entire town and loved getting the candy. They were so much fun to watch, we were rolling just watching them. After trick or treating we headed to Austin. We stayed with Kerry's Aunt Beth and Uncle Steve in Austin. We had so much fun shopping and enjoying Austin. The three of us went, along with Brandon, Jennifer, Parker, Brett, Crew and Kate as well as Gramps and Bebe. Beth and Steve had a neat omelet breakfast with waffles that we all loved. Bree mainly filled up on whipping cream. Healthy I know! They also hosted a wonderful fajita dinner Sat. night. We enjoyed seeing all the family so much. The kids enjoyed Inflatable World and playing on the playground at WaterLoo on Sunday. Taylor, Ashley and Abigail Rogers met us at the mall and the three girls were so cute together. Bree loves her cousins. Beth and Steve were wonderful hosts and we had a great trip. This week we got the cabinets all finished and the doors hung along with all the hardware on. Kerry also got the tin back splash hung. Aunt Beth came to town and painted Bree's room and we got the base boards down and I painted the shelves for her closet so other than hanging her chandelier (which is in storage) her room is ready. We are going to start laying the tile tom. after we go pick our appliances up at Lowe's. Things are getting really close to being ready for us to move in. Yeah!! Poor Bree has had another cold this week. This time she has had a real raspy voice and a lot of congestion. Her fever only lasted for about three days and the lil doll seems to be getting over it. Her procedures were rescheduled to next Thursday, Nov. 13th at Medical City Dallas. She will be sedated for the procedures and we are hoping it is not as bad as it all sounds. Please keep us in your prayers. On another note, Bree has started to really sing out loud. She loves to sing Old Mcdonald and Jesus Loves Me. She has the cutest little voice. And she is such a prissy girl. If I haven't got a bow in her hair fast enough, she will look at me and say, ''bow?". She also takes off my jewelry and wears it. She loves baby dolls and purses, too. The girl also has to have her nails painted if she sees Mema painting hers. And she loves to shop. What can I say, she gets it honestly. She is such a lil Diva. She loves to try on new shoes, too. I love it!!!