Look What I Got!! It Finally Came!

My copy of "Cool Daddy Rat" arrived today! I was so excited and so moved by the moment...I had to hold back the tears! How fun to sit with my daughter and read to her from my sister's book! It was a moment I will never forget! Kris...I am so proud of you! The book is beautiful and so fun! I just love it! And Meredith and I will read it together often!!

Learning New Things

Meredith has mastered several new skills this week...

She now holds her bottle all by herself!

She is learning to stand!

And... she is embracing her rebellious side by sporting a mohawk (Thanks to Court)!!
I'm just excited that she has enough hair to put it in a mohawk! ;)

Hoppy Easter

Here's some pictures from Easter...

On It's Way!

Look! It's on it's way! I'm so EXCITED!! "Cool Daddy Rat" is just the first of what I'm sure will be many children's books written by my sister! She has two more being published (see my sidebar) in the near future and has no shortage of ideas for more stories to come. She has amazing talent! This book is so darling...go get yourself one..or two! They make great gifts!

Kris...we are so proud of you! Congratulations on a dream come true! We love you!!


The following items have been shipped to you by Amazon.com:
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Qty Item Price Shipped Subtotal
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Amazon.com items (Sold by Amazon.com, LLC):
1 Cool Daddy Rat $11.55 1 $11.55

Shipped via UPS (estimated arrival date: 31-March-2008).

Teeth!

Meredith got her first two teeth! They broke through at the same time about a month ago, but I couldn't get a good picture of them until now. Isn't that toothy grin so cute??

St. Patty's Day in Louisiana

On St. Patrick's Day we drove to Lake Charles, Louisiana. Well, actually, it just happened to be Court's day off and we drove to Iowa, Louisiana to this meat market called Rabideaux's to get some sausage that Court and his family love. Iowa is just past Lake Charles, which is where Court was born. So we stopped for lunch in Lake Charles and had pizza and sandwiches at Tony's...a restaurant that Court's dad used to frequent when Court was Meredith's age. Here's a couple of pictures of us there. We realized it was St. Patrick's day...so we thought that was a lucky turn of events... that we took a fun little road trip for the day. Good thing Meredith wore green! So we actually have a couple of pictures on her on her first St. Patty's day wearing green!

The Vomit Comet Rides Again

Yesterday Meredith seemed to be feeling better, so I thought I'd take her for a walk in the stroller. I strapped her in and walked away for a minute. She was sitting happily in the stroller playing with some toys when I left her. When I came back I said with a smile "Ready to Go?" She looked up at me and my smile quickly evaporated. My camera was sitting close by so I snapped this picture. Poor baby. Of course, I was the one who wanted to cry...more vomit to clean up?!? Ugh! She seems to be feeling better today, but I'm not going to get overly confident. Poor girl has been throwing up since Sunday... and we've also had grandma throwing up, grandpa, and daddy too. It's a real, honest-to-goodness barf-o-rama! Yesterday Aunt Kim came to see Meredith...this morning she called to say she had been throwing up all night. Sorry Kim! Ugh!

Barf-O-Rama

So here is a picture of my sweet little Meredith at her Aunt Kim's wedding reception. Isn't she cute??



This is Meredith 24 hours later:



The barf-o-rama began at 4am Sunday morning. Court heard Meredith gagging and jumped up to check on her. At first we though she was just coughing, but then I saw the vomit on her shirt. So, we changed her and cleaned up the mess and then put her in bed between us (she had 3 towels doubled over underneath her). Meredith continued to throw up about every 30 minutes until 7am-ish. She got to the point where she was just dry heaving, she had thrown up so many times. When she hadn't thrown up in an hour, we gave her some pedialyte, and sure enough she threw up again...and again...and again. I would guess that in that first 24 hours she threw up about 15 times. She threw up on Court about 6 of those 15 times. Poor guy...it seemed that she'd wait until daddy took his turn to hold her to spew. Sunday evening after dinner, Meredith's cousin Tucker started throwing up too. Caryn was trying to keep him over a trash can or a box top but he wanted to be snuggled in her arms so, she ended up getting covered in vomit too. I think between the two kids we had to wash every towel in the house twice! Fortunately, Tucker seemed to be feeling better the next day. Meredith, on the other hand, was a different story. She slept through the night on Sunday night without throwing up, so we let her have a bottle because she was so hungry. Unfortunately, she started throwing up again. So we made an appointment with the Dr. Of course, when we took her in, she seemed to be feeling better and was more animated and even babbling a bit. The Dr. said she seemed to be doing okay and not to worry...just to keep her hydrated. We were hopeful she had turned the corner. Oh, no... as soon as we got home from the Dr. She threw up 2 more times and was lethargic again! Dang it...why did she wait until AFTER the Dr, to do that? So, we spent the evening giving her about a half an ounce of Pedialyte every 5 minutes. She managed to keep most of it down and even perked up a bit. We put her to bed at her usual time and she slept through the night. When she woke up this morning she was so hungry she was beside herself. I poured 4 oz of Pedialyte into a bottle and she attacked it. Court could not pry the bottle from her hands! It was so sad to see my baby so desperately hungry. Once we finally got the bottle away from her we waited with baited breath to see what would happen. She seemed ok but was still trying to get at the bottle. So I filled it up again and by the time I got back to her room, she had thrown up on Court - again! She threw up one more time this morning, but has since managed to keep everything down. Of course, now she has diarrhea and is still a bit lethargic. So...we'll just keep a supply of Pedialyte on hand and hope for the best. Sadly, my mother-in-law came home from work after only an hour...she threw up at work. I hope she fairs better than Meredith did! Sorry Mom! Didn't mean to get you sick! ;(

Taking the "Plunge"

Congrats to my sister-in-law Kimberly and her new hubby Adam! They were married on Saturday, March 8th in the Houston Temple. It was a beautiful day! Of course, it was not without some drama too! While driving back home from Houston, something fell off the back of a semi, and Kim and Adam ran over it. It flattened both tires on the passenger side! Poor Adam had to change both tires in his suit! Needless to say...the suit didn't survive the ordeal. Good thing we took lots of pictures at the temple. If that weren't enough, my mother-in-law got side swiped while she was driving home from Houston! She was lucky, though, because people from the other two cars were taken away in ambulances. Just a few seconds difference could have meant that the reception would have been held at the hospital! Gratefully, she escaped with no injuries and her car was still drivable, so while she lost 2 hours of prep time for the reception, she did make it home in one piece and still managed to pull off a most beautiful reception. Car issues aside...it was a good day. Here's some of my favorite photos:

Hair Do

Yesterday Kimberly and I went and got our hair done for her wedding (on Saturday) and our birthdays (which is today...yes, we have the same birthday!)... Here's a couple of pictures: