Christmas Memories

Well I am copying this from my girlfriend Holly, thanks for the great idea. I loved reading your memories. Now, I am going to tell you about some of my favorite Christmas memories. Christmas in my house was always so much fun growing up. With Christmas music loudly playing in the radio my Mom would let my sister, Malena and I help decorate the tree and put up the lights outside on the house. We had theses lil wood characters and so many lights I use to think it looked like a Christmas wonderland at our house. And then we would go inside and spend the evening making Christmas sugar cookies from scratch. We would cut out trees, bells, gingerbread men, santa claus, and stars from the most delicious dough. So good we would get into trouble for eating it raw. Then we would cover them in our choice of sprinkles and bake them to perfection. We also helped Mom make peanut brittle, fudge and my favorite, peanut butter balls. These memories are so precious to me. My mother and sister both love to cook and are very good at it, I must say. As for me, well I didn't inherit that gene, but I do love to make Christmas cookies and candy with some of my favorite people. This is one of my very favorite memories and I was so thrilled to include Bree in the baking this year. May we have many more wonderful memories.

Holiday Fun

We spent the weekend getting caught up on sleep and settling in our home. Bree enjoyed relaxing around the house in her Christmas pj's. We read her at the time fav. book for the gillionth time. It's the Princess Fairytales. She picks that book every night to read. Talk about getting old, but she won't have anything else right now. Saturday we had some family pictures taken and Bree was such a lil ham. She really likes to have her picture taken..wonder where she gets that from? For those of you who know me, you know I don't go anywhere with out a camera. I am very picture happy! Cara at Magical Memories gave her a candy cane when we were done and she ate the whole thing before we pulled into our driveway. I think she might have liked it! Now when she sees them hanging on Nona's tree she thinks she has to have one. I told her no, and she asked me "why?" I had no idea that all would start this early. She has been asking me why a lot this weekend. It makes me laugh, I just had no idea she would start that so early. Kerry got our closet shelves finished so I unpacked the boxes in our closet. It was so cool finding all my clothes, shoes and purses that I hadn't seen in 6 months. It's like I have a whole new wardrobe. I love it!! Saturday afternoon we took Aubree to see the Christmas parade downtown. Bree loved the tractors and horses and of course the candy she picked up. We asked if she wanted to go see Santa and she said,"yes"with a smile. So we followed the crowd to the depot to see Santa but when we got to the front of the line and it was our turn Bree started to panic. She held on to me as tight as she could and started to cry hysterically. There was no way she was going to sit in Santa's lap. Needless to say I had my picture made holing Bree next to Santa. We really enjoyed the Winter Bizarre and all the fun Christmas activities. Sunday we started our holiday season off with the 1st Christmas Party. We had the Miller Family Christmas. This is my Mema's mother's side of the family. It was a big turn out. My Mema's Uncle Timmis Miller who is 91 was the only sibling who is still alive of the 8 siblings of my Mema's mother. It is really neat to see all the extended family from my Mema's side and I am blessed that everyone is so close. Bree enjoyed lunch and playing out on the slide with all her distant cousins. But I must say I think her favorite part was present time. Mema gave her present to her and she immediately tore the bow off and started to unwrap it. This year Christmas is going to be so much fun for her. She knows all about presents now and how to tear into them. It was so fun to watch her tear into the package. Sunday evening Bree and Nona made Christmas cookies. Bree actually ate mor than she made, but she was still a good helper. Nona always makes the best Christmas cookies and candy and it was fun for Bree to help her like her Mommy use to do. I can't wait for the rest of our Christmas activities. We have 2 parties next Friday, 1 Saturday, 2 the next weekend and then who knows what all we will be doing the week of Christmas. We always have a very busy holiday season and I wouldn't want it any other way. I love seeing all the friends and family for the holidays! Speaking of family, Kerry's Grandmother Burnett received some, plain out BAD news from her oncologist this last week. She has lung cancer again. For those of you who know Gigi, she is one of the strongest women I know. Please pray for her as she will be going thru a lot this holiday season. May everyone have a blessed week. XOXOXO ( Oh, I found these pictures from Bree's 1st b-day and decided to post them since I never did. I can't believe how much she has changed in just a few months.)

We had such a blessed TG. Bree was such a joy. I was fortunate enough to have Thursday and Friday off to spend with my family. Wednesday night we ate supper at Kerry's parents with the family that had already made it to town. Kerry went duck hunting with his brother and family early Thursday morning and amazingly, Bree and I slept in til 10:00. She is such a good snuggler and we both enjoyed the time of resting together. Bree and I got ready, Bree wore her turkey shirt that Aunt Jen made for her. Talk about cute. Then we met Kerry at my Mema & Pa's for lunch. Bree was such a joy at lunch. She loved all the food and especially loved to share a piece of Mommy's favorite, million dollar pie. My Mema does most of the cooking for our family and as always it was delish. Bree really was entertaining. She is such the talker these days. We watched some football and then went to the Kindle's for supper. Both sides of Kerry's family were there so it was definitely a full house. Bree had a blast playing with all her cousins. There are 3 little girls now...so they are making a come back to catch up with the boys. We are so blessed by our family and really enjoyed spending time with them. Lights went out at our house around 12pm and I was awoke by my alarm at 2:30 am to enjoy a family tradition that was started with my sister. We love bargains, so we would always get up super early for black Friday deals. Every year the stores open earlier and earlier and if you don't get there when they open, chances are you won't get what you want. So Mom and I left GS at 3am to arrive at JCPennies at 4am when they opened. I know it sounds crazy, but it is really a lot of fun and something my family has been doing together for about 15 years. We look thru the sale adds and make a list of where all we want to go on Thurs. night so we can be prepared for the big sales. It is exciting to see all the good sales and then to try and cross people off my Christmas shopping list. We got all our shopping done ( we hit like eight places) by 8:30am. I was so thrilled we were able to get everything we went for. Mom and I had such a wonderful time and are still laughing at the memories we made. Once we got home I was going to go take a nap when Bebe called to see if I wanted to go to 1st Monday with some of the family that was in town. Not wanting to miss out on a girl shopping trip I decided to join them. Aunt Beth, Aunt Julie, Allie, Bebe, Jennifer , Kate and I had a good time shopping and I am almost all finished with my Christmas shopping. That's what I love about black Friday, the bargains and getting most of my shopping done. The sleep deprivation hit me Friday evening around 7pm and Bree and I were asleep on the couch by 9pm. Poor Kerry, we had rented movies, and he was the only one who stayed up to watch them. I just could not stay awake any longer. Sat. Mema took Bree and I to Ivan Smith Furniture to get a new breakfast table. The two tables from our other house are too big to fit in my new breakfast area. So for Christmas Mema offered to get us a table that will fit. We found a really cute one and Mema didn't even make me wait til Christmas to unwrap it. Bree actually did help us pick it out. We were looking at tables and it was between two and I ask Mema which she thought would be best. Then I walked over to the one we didn't pick and was looking at it and Bree said"NO, no, no!" and that was that I knew she liked the other one best of all. Thanks Mim! It looks great in our breakfast area. I also put up the tree in our family room and Bree's room and most of our other decorations. The ones I could find anyway. Bree loves the trees. The one in her room is a white tree with pink and silver girly ornaments. She thinks it is so special to have her own tree in her room. I tried to do some wrapping too, but Bree wanted everything I was wrapping so I decided to do that at a later time. Our house is 90% decorated for the holidays. I love this time of year and can already tell it is going to be so fun for Aubree. Sunday was baby/child dedication at MSBC. We committed in front of the congregation and God to raise Bree in a Godly home and do our best to teach her and train her up for the Lord. It was very special time for us. It is very important to Kerry and I for Bree to know the Lord and to some day commit her life to Him and be saved. Bro. Ronald did a really neat dedication service and gave the 7 children personalized Bibles. It was very cool. Kate was one of the other babies dedicated, so it was even more special for us. Also, every year Mom sends flowers to the church to set out on the Sunday after Malena's b-day in honor and remembrance of her. The flowers were absolutely beautiful and I know the congregation enjoyed them. After church we had lunch with Kerry's family and then spent the afternoon relaxing. Bree has been using the potty like such a big girl. She tells me almost every time she needs to use the restroom. She is such a big girl. She loves our new house and is so proud of her room. She has already discovered how much fun it is to jump on her bed. We put it on the toddler bed this time instead of the crib. It is low to the ground with a side rail so she can easily get up and down. Every time I go in there she is on her bed either playing with her dolls or jumping on it. I can usually tell when she is jumping by the loud laughter coming from her room. She is just a bundle of joy for sure!! Happy Monday to everyone!XOXO

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!!!