Graisi's Baptism

We were so fortunate to be able to share Graisi with our family and friends yesterday morning. This is a picture of Martin's family who came to help us celebrate. The children from left to right are: Maggie (age 6), Graisi (age 7), Alli Claire (age 1) and Caroline (age 2). The adults from left to right are: Aunt Janet (Martin's little sister), Martin, Me, Uncle Paul (Janet's husband) and Aunt Bev (Martin's older sister). My dad was also there, but didn't stay for pictures. Oh well...

I know you don't care about the people who were there to share with us, but I'm putting it out here so when Graisi is older she'll know who was there to rejoice with us. Sallie, Ed, Hunter and Brantley, Jaime, Chad and Blake, Gary, Andrew and Amber, Mrs. Melanie S., Aunt Janet, Uncle Paul, Maggie and Caroline, Aunt Bev, Papaw Harold, Uncle Chris and Aunt Stacy, Kerri and Mallory, Brian and Brandon, Emmy, Fluffy (Snuffy :o) and Amy K. If I've missed anyone, please email me to let me know. I want to make sure everyone is accounted for, for posterity :o)

Graisi was also baptized in the same service as Piper, her Sunday School friend. They were wired and silly before the service!!! And were soo excited to be getting dunked :o) I am such a fortunate mother to know my daughter will spend eternity with me. I am so proud of her as we all are. She went around yesterday telling people she was their sister now.... Oh that's so Graisi.

Later, yesterday afternoon we were also able to attend Brandon's baptism at the Family service. We are also very proud for him, too!! Congratulations Brandon!

Afterwards, our friends Ed and Sallie hosted a dinner in honor of Graisi. Paula and Andy, Kevin and Tonya (and baby), Wendy, Riley and Reagan, Ed, Sallie, Hunter and Brantley, Jaime, Chad, Blake, Hallie, Andrew and Daniel were all in attendance. The McGraw's weren't able to make it due to family being in town, but we missed them. Thank you for being such wonderful friends!!! I don't know what I would do without you!!!!!!!! I do love each one of you for being such a special person in my life! We had GREAT food as usual and entertaining conversation (as usual :o) Hey, Kev.... there will be payback! I promise!! And yes, that is a threat.

A special thanks goes to Ed who sat up last night and put the picture and video out here on the blog!! As I've said before, YOU ROCK!!

Baby shoes and Jesus!

Yesterday afternoon I decided to go and buy some white sneakers for Alli Claire, so I went to the new local childrens shoe store. You know, like solid white Keds or something like them. They measured her foot and determined they had NOTHING big enough to fit the width of her chubby baby foot... EXCEPT for a pair of hot pink Mary Jane Crocs. Now ain't that somethin'?! A children's shoe store without any sneakers to fit my baby's feet. Thank goodness for Crocs!
And they had some on clearance for Graisi too. $10 a pair! I love sales!!

Graisi will be baptized Sunday at our 9:30am service. We are all so excited for her! If you haven't been reading since April, she accepted Christ has her Savior on April 7th of this year at a local Easter egg hunt. Since then, I have loved listening to her prayers at night. They have matured so much. I think she also enjoys her devotions and Bible reading at night more too.
Everyone is invited to join us for the service Sunday if you are in town. We would love for you to be there.

Our wonderful Healer!

I just talked to Daddy again and Nancy got to her step down room yesterday afternoon sometime. He said he tried to call me but didn't get anyone at my house. It's funny because
we were home all afternoon. But that's beside the point.... Anyway, the good news is that
she's in a private room now. He said she wasn't feeling good today so please pray for her strength and comfort as she recovers. I honestly didn't think she would live to this point. For her to have survived is a miracle of prayer in itself. I pray she and Daddy both know what a blessing they have received and use it accordingly to glorify our healing Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!! I ask that this also be your prayer.

Progress EVERYDAY!!

I just talked to Daddy. Nancy is doing much better! I was a little worried about brain damage just by the way she was acting Sunday and Monday, but he said she was not doing any of the bizarre stuff that she was doing and she seems more like herself today. She ate her first meal yesterday and drank a Coke today. The CAT scan from Monday showed a hematoma on her left lung, but they weren't really concerned about it. They said it could have come from the surgery. They're just going to watch it for now. She may go into a step down room this afternoon. Daddy said he would call me if she does. So this is VERY good news!!!
Thank you for your continued prayers! I know she has come through this because of them and our faithful Healer!! God is so good!!

3rd Grade Material

My update from Daddy last night was that Nancy is acting like a 3 yr old. She acknowledges everyone that comes in except for him. He said she closes her eyes and mouth shut tight as if she's pouting.... I'm not sure what that is about, but I'm really worried about brain damage at this point. Daddy is frustrated and I'm not sure how much longer he can keep going like this. I'm coveting your prayers!!!

Graisi and I were having a conversation yesterday afternoon about a boy in her class who was held back in kindergarten. Here's how it went...

Graisi: EJ was is supposed to be in 3rd grade but he was held back in kindergarten.
Me: Oh really...?
Graisi: Yeah, he was in Mrs. Byrd's class with me but it was his second time in there. He's supposed to be in 3rd grade so that would make him 3rd grade material.

3rd grade MATERIAL?? I have no idea where she learned to use this word like that.... but that's my Graisi! She's in a class all by herself.

Alli Claire still isn't feeling peachy keen but hopefully she'll get better soon. Right now we're having to put decongestant drops in her nose which she hates. Wouldn't you??

Graisi has her first official Girl Scout meeting tonight. We got her brown Brownie vest yesterday but couldn't get all the patches and stuff to go on it because they were sold out... Go figure. None the less, she's excited to wear it anyway.

Updates

Yesterday afternoon Martin and I went to visit Nancy in the hospital. She is still in ICU but was able to talk to us for a minute or two. She told me she wanted to go home and she loved me. She has come so far from last Sunday, but still has a LONG way to go. Please keep her and Daddy in your prayers. He had some issues with one of her nurses and got a bit stressed out Saturday. He needs prayer too.

Last night we had a wonderful worship service at church and also sealed the time capsule to be opened in 50 years. We wrote letters and put them with the rest of the church member's letters. I pray I'm still around when it's opened again but if not, my children will have a letter from me and my wishes for them.

I got a call Friday from Graisi's principal at school. She informed me of a conversation the counselor had with Graisi in the lunch room. Dr. B said Graisi told the counselor that she lived in a different city about 15 miles away. She wanted to make sure we hadn't moved and not told them and that we didn't have Graisi in the school illegally. But Graisi made this story up because the counselor said she lived far away and Graisi wanted it to sound like she lived far away too... OH MY GOODNESS! If it's not one thing it's something else with her. If this is the worst she's come up with, I'm good with it.

GREAT News!

Daddy called to give us an update on Nancy. He said she looked so good this morning he almost didn't recognize her! He said he wanted to jump up and down and take her home right then, but wouldn't know what he would do with all the tubes once he got her there! They moved the ventilator to the other side because it was hurting where it was. She is trying to move her lips, but isn't able to right now. They aren't going to need to do dialysis anymore due to her progress. I can't believe she's doing so well considering they didn't know if she would make it Monday. This is so encouraging!!! Please continue to pray for her. She's got a long way to go, but our prayers ARE working!

Such a big girl

Martin and I have been trying to lay Alli Claire down in her bed at night instead of holding her until she goes to sleep. She screamed the first night for about a minute and then went to sleep. The second night the screaming lasted about 30 seconds and last night for about 5 seconds. I wish we'd have done this a lot earlier versus waiting up to an hour for her to go to sleep. They told me she has no trouble getting herself to sleep at school, so we thought we'd give it a shot. My heartstrings are still being tugged a little because I know Alli Claire is the last baby I'll have and I want to enjoy her, but our former night routine was less than enjoyable. I want to hold her and love her before she goes to bed, but that hasn't happened in a while due to the "wallering" factor.

On a happier note

Graisi got tested again last night and is now a level 7 skater!!! I couldn't believe it!

Also, tomorrow is my bi-annual consignment sale. I'm tired, but very excited about the treasures I'm going to find :o) Happy hunting!

My other mother, Nancy

For those of you who may not know, my step-mom, Nancy had a heart attack Sunday afternoon. As my dad called to tell me, she was having one at that moment. He said she didn't look good after he'd come in from the workshop and took her blood pressure which was 195/110! Luckily they made it to the ER in time. She only said she had indigestion and didn't want to go... After they did the heart cath, the doctors said they normally would wait until Monday morning, but in her case, they were afraid to. All of her arteries were 90-95% blocked. There were 18 heart attacks waiting to happen, excluding the blood clot they found. The surgeon said he'd not seen a case like hers in a long time. What should have been a 2 1/2 hour surgery turned into 5 1/2 hours. Her team had to sew many veins together to make enough for the 5 bypasses they had to do. That's right a quintuple bypass!! Her lungs failed to oxegenate, so they had to leave her chest open until some of the swelling went down. Monday she lost 4 liters of blood, so they took her back to surgery to see why. They found a few blood clots and removed them and also put a couple more stitches in the veins to help stop the bleeding and closed her chest.



Yesterday and today have been much better. SThe bleeding has stopped but she is still on the ventilator and balloon pump in her leg to help relieve stress on her heart and help it pump easier. They are now looking at her kidneys and the stress on them from being on the bypass machine for so long and having to remove the fluid from her body. She may have to have a couple of treatments of dialysis to give her kidneys a break in the next day or so.



Please be praying for Nancy's strength to pull through this and also my dad's endurance to take care of her. I'll try to keep you posted on her progress. Thank you all for your prayers in advance!!

She did it again!!

Last night Martin was giving Alli Claire a bath after dinner and she pooped in the bathtub AGAIN! I'm not sure why this is becoming a place of potty, but after two nights, cleaning the bathtub and Cloroxing the toys ain't funny anymore. However, after she did it last night she thought it was.

Graisi is still doing a great job of getting ready in the mornings. Mallory couldn't play yesterday afternoon because she got in trouble for not listening to Kerri before school. Graisi made the comment that she's going to have to tell Mallory it's better to listen and do what you're supposed to do because she doesn't get in trouble anymore and I don't yell at her either :o)

I tried again. I cooked hand-pattied hamburgers last night. I realized that I was in charge of supper so I thawed some meat, combined the meat with some A-1 and grilled them on the George Foreman Grill. They actually turned out very good. I asked Martin if I'd redeemed myself from the muffins. There was only a look given. I think it's going to take a few more good meals to cover the atrocity of the muffin fiasco. But I think I'm on may way :o)

Random Thoughts for Thursday (Revised)

This morning Martin woke me up in the middle of a dream. You may or may not know this about me but I dream in vivid detail and remember most of what I dream. This morning when he woke me up I was dreaming I was painting my toes light pink with a voodoo bone.... This isn't even one of the weird ones. Does that tell you anything??

Alli Claire blew her first kiss to me this morning when I left her at school. I've been trying to get her to do it for 5 months now, but she's always put her hand/fingers to her mouth and started licking them. Today she actually did it!

Yesterday we chopped the tree limb up and stacked it on the street. Josh, our next door neighbor, is such a wonderful person. He's the kind of person that would help you move a piano and ask if there's anything else he could help you with. This is know, because he's done it. He had a reciprocating saw that did the job perfectly. He even let ME use it! I LOVE me some power tools!! (Remember, Martin gave me a sliding compound miter saw and work bench for Christmas one year :o) I think we'll be able to save the tree for now but we'll keep our options open. It may still need to come down in the future. It looks awful, but only from one side...

Graisi is still doing so good in the mornings getting ready. We're so proud of her and for her!

Last night I ran Alli Claire's bath water after she finished dinner. After I put her in the water I realized I'd forgotten something or another. So I stepped out of the bathroom for just a minute and stepped back in. As I entered, I noticed AC's face was REALLY red and then it dawned on me.... she was pooping in the bathtub!! I quickly looked over the back of her and sure nuf, there it/they were. I asked Martin if he wanted to hold her or get the poop out and clean the tub. He politely declined the tub and elected to hold the pooper instead.

There was been a death....

This morning when we woke up our big, beautiful Bradford Pear tree (in the front yard) was partially laying on it's side. Something happened in the middle of the night and split one of the major branches. It's so ugly right now. I've got a call into a "tree surgeon" in hopes of saving it. My thoughts are that if we remove that broken branch, the remaining foliage will gravitate towards the empty hole. It's a good theory anyway, huh? Graisi was pretty upset too when she saw it. The side that broke is the side all of the kids in the neighborhood climb. So this is not just our tragedy, all of the children are sad too. I LOVE my tree and I'll hate to see it cut down if need be.

On another note of tragedy, our dinner Monday night was an event of sorts. I won't go into deep detail, but I not only can't boil water (I've burned TWO pans doing that) but I can't cook
muffins either. You know the kind you pour into a bowl and add milk. Stir and bake. Yea, they got burned. It appears, I forgot to turn off the eye of the stove when I removed the eggs I cooked. I placed the cooked muffin pan on top of the HOT eye and burned six of my twelve muffins. I removed all of the burned parts (which stuck to the paper muffin cups) and gave the muffin tops to Martin because he said he would eat them. My dear, wonderful husband choked down one bite of the beloved muffin tops and refused to eat another bite. It seems that the smoke that rose from the burning paper muffin cups infiltrated the muffin tops and gave them an unpleasant taste. He was such a good sport, but as you can see, I REALLY CAN'T COOK!!! I've been telling my friends this for years, but I don't think they actually believe me. When Martin and I first started dating I tried to cook him a pizza and didn't realize I had to cook the crust first before I added the toppings.... And he married me anyway :o) My cooking deaths also include the spaghetti I cooked for Mom and Vinnie when I was 18 that included raw hamburger meat. I'm reminded of this often. I can truly say that my friends and family are there because they love me and not for my cooking!!!

So far, so good

This morning was another blessing. Graisi came down, got dressed, got her snack ready AND had enough time left to watch 5 minutes of television!! WOW!! Whatever has happened I'll take this every morning, thank ya very much!!

Alli Claire has begun to bite me and anyone else who does stuff that she doesn't like. And those little chompers HURT!!! She has such a personality I've never seen before. She definitely has the temper to go with her red hair!!

I've become obsessed with watching the soaps online while I work. It makes my days go by so much faster. And I know, I know this makes me a bad person, but I LOVE them!! I look forward to coming to work every day just to see what Phyllis, Nick and all of my other friends have done the day before. It's so exciting :o) Hey, Paula and Sallie, it's better than Jerry Springer, right??

They brought her back ... at least temporarily

At 6:30am this morning our beautiful, well-mannered, time conscience 7 yr old daughter descended from the upper floor with hair and teeth brushed, face washed and ready to be dressed. I swear I heard the angels singing! She didn't complain when I suggested a different color pony-tail holder for which she had to go back upstairs to retrieve. She got her snack together and in her backpack without blood-shed. I know this is temporary as the aliens will be back to get her and return her replacement soon, possibly by this afternoon at 3:15pm. But for right now I will savor the blessings of this morning.

Open House

We had our 4th or 5th Open House yesterday afternoon. Since only one person has come so far, Martin left and took Graisi to skate while Alli Claire and I stayed home. Well... TWO ladies stopped by! One is supposed to call me today to schedule a time for her to bring her husband back tomorrow. Please be praying for us. She seemed like the perfect person to live there. She and her husband are now living in a town house and are looking for a bigger place. She was comfortable with the size of the yard and loved the paint colors and flooring. They don't have any kids, yet, but liked the fact that young families live around us. They sounded so much like Martin and I when we moved in 9 years ago. Please keep us and this family in your prayers.

How much better can it get??

Happy Friday everyone!! Martin is leaving me at home tomorrow with the little ones to support the AU Tigers with Ed. This is the first game he's been able to attend since the 2005 season. On second thought it may have been 2004. I don't remember, they just all swoosh together these days.

I am also very excited today! I ordered my Beth Moore conference ticket for next August in San Antonio!! I'm so excited because I know I'm going with at least one of my dearest friends. I hope the other ladies will come so I can get to know them a little better also. It should be quiet a memorable trip! I can't wait, I mean how much better can it be to listen to God's Word through Beth Moore in the presence of Godly women and friends?! Can you tell I'm a little EXCITED???!!!! I am..I really am!

Now if we can just get an offer on the house, I'll be on Cloud 10!

Happy Friday everyone!

Forsis and Moshen

Last night it was my job to put the little monster down to sleep. It takes anywhere from 15-60 minutes for her to go down. And it's a JOB! So I left Martin at the table helping Graisi with her logic/word problems. If you know me at all, I DON'T DO MATH and I DON'T DO WORD PROBLEMS! I mean, I don't add or subtract without a piece of paper.... literally. Ask Martin.

So this morning when I woke up Martin informed me that he should have let me do Graisi's homework with her. She reads books so fast that she thinks she can read the word problems that fast too, instead of really reading them and thinking about what they're about. Martin said she read the name "Neil" as "Nellie" at least 25 times. He was so frustrated with her but they got through it. So my conclusion is... if Martin had a hard time helping her, what did he think I could do???

Oh yea, about the title of this blog... This morning I read over some of Graisi's classwork from yesterday. The title of one a story she'd written was "Forsis and Moshen". I couldn't figure out what it was until I read it aloud several times and then Martin finally got it. Will you??

Level 6 Skater!!

I had to go pick Graisi up from school yesterday because her ear was hurting. When I got there, she bee-bopped out of the nurses office as if nothing was wrong. I needed her to show me she wasn't feeling well a little better than she did. I didn't take her to the doctor because the symptoms didn't seem to warrant it. So I took her home and gave her some of the $100 ear drops that were prescribed for me earlier this year. She seemed to be much better by the afternoon. So, we're going to follow this coarse of action until some other symptom develops...

We went to the mall yesterday afternoon to kill time before skate practice. We redeemed two coupons for free Aunt Annie's Pretzels. I had so forgotten how good those things are!! I got a regular one with cheese dip and Graisi got a cinnamon with icing :o) YUM!! Then we looked around for a while. The miracle of the whole day was that I spent 90 minutes at the mall and didn't spend a penny! If anyone knows me well, they know I like/LOVE to shop. But since Martin and I have paid off the credit cards, I've tried to limit myself on what I spend. I was sooo proud of myself. Graisi tempted me A LOT, but I refrained from purchasing the little Jibit's that she wanted for her Crocks.

Last night at skating, the coaches re-tested Graisi and she is now a Level 6 skater!! We didn't know they would be rechecking her skills so we didn't know she'd passed until class was over. She was so excited and came out giving us high fives :o)

Today are class pictures and she has "baby piggy tails" on top. She looked so cute when she left this morning. She wore her first day of school outfit and little ribbons in her hair. We'll see how they turn out in a few weeks. I never have extremely high hopes for school pictures....

Alli Claire is going to turn into a kernel of corn or an English pea... That seems to be all she eats these days. That and meat sticks. Oh well, I guess it could be worse, right??

WAAAAARRRR Eagle!!!!

I gotta give kudo's to my beloved Auburn Tigers to pulling it out in the last 4 minutes of the game Saturday night. Hopefully, we'll look better and play consistantly for the rest of the year.

Football season couldn't start without Rotel Dip even though we'd just eaten dinner and the dip couldn't be enjoyed until the 3rd quarter. But, hey, we had it, right? And that's all that counts.

Graisi got sunburned pretty bad Saturday in the neighbors pool. Being the attentive mom I am, I forgot to apply sunscreen. She proclaimed that night that it hurt to smile so I slathered her down with Aloe Vera. School pictures are tomorrow :o)

I finally got Alli Claire's sock monkey made Saturday. She LOVES it!! She has toted it around and sucked on it's arms until they're soggy. We don't have a good name for it yet though. Graisi's is named Pooky Night Night. If anyone has a good name, please leave it in the comments. The best Graisi and I could come up with was, Monkey. Now that's creative, huh??