18 Months Ago...

...a little girl named Aila Grace arrived.
Six pounds, 3 ounces, 17 inches. Tiny, but a radiant little blessing.

Eighteen months later, still tiny (18 pounds, 28 inches)--
but every day more and more a blessing.
We get glimpses of Heaven's joy when we hold her,
and understand redemption more deeply when we look at her.

Sweet little one, we love you.
We pray that you,
being rooted and established in love,
will spend all your days
grasping how WIDE and LONG and HIGH and DEEP
is the love of Christ,
that you may know this love that surpasses knowledge,
and that you may be filled to the measure
of all the FULLNESS OF GOD.

Eight Years Ago Today

I used to pray so much for the life I am living right now, and I prayed BIG.
But the Lord surpassed my biggest hopes and dreams in providing Justin as my husband,
the father of our children, and the head of our home.

I am beyond grateful that God held in store for us things that are
"immeasurably more than all we could ask or imagine" (Colossians 3:20).

Happy Anniversary, Justin!

Hospital Run #2: A PLANNED Trip to the Hospital for Ear Tubes

This morning Trevor and Aila had tubes in their ears. TOO many ear infections this past year, and too many adverse affects from the antibiotics needed to tackle those ear infections! So we headed to Kennestone Hospital at 6am for the surgeries. All went well, and we are praying that those tubes really help!

Aila playing with the phone in her pre-op room

SO precious in that little gown and way-too-big red hospital socks...

Sleepy...she'd be up since 4:15am...

Trevor was thinking he would have to have shots. We told him no. He also thought the doctor was going to cut his tummy open (a la C-section). We told him he just had to smell some medicine in a mask. He seemed pretty relieved!

This is Dr. Michael Vick--who, in spite of a seriously unfortunate name, was
absolutely WONDERFUL with the kids. Best ENT specialist ever! I must say, though,
that it looks like he's fallen asleep standing up in this first pic...

This is when Aila, and then Trevor, were taking back for their surgeries.

Hospital Run #1 - An Ambulance Ride to the ER

On Friday night, my parents watched the kids while Justin and I got to have a night away--we stayed in Atlanta at my aunt & uncle's home. But I woke up just after 4am with pain in my back that very quickly worsened. In less than an hour I went from sleeping soundly to writhing in pain on the floor, waiting for the ambulance. It was right up there with labor pain! This should have clued me in to what was going on, since there's an episode of Friends (the best show ever to grace the airwaves) in which Joey gets a kidney stone and is in terrible pain. And since I was nearly 100% sure I wasn't in labor, I should've at least guessed it could be a kidney stone.

Soooo...6 hours at Emory Hospital, lots of too-low blood pressure, more blood work than I ever would care to have done, and a CT scan later....kidney stone.

Who knew something SO small could wreak such havoc???? Good Heavens!!!

Small Group Pool Party

A fun night with the small group! Usually the kids are with a sitter, but on this night we had them with us--they had a wonderful time, and we had fun getting to watch them play. :)

Bubbles!!!

I'm thinking she doesn't quite have the hang of bubble-blowing!

Water Fun (and then the tables turn)!

Started out watering the tomato plants...

Turned into Justin spraying Trevor with the hose...

But then Trevor got a hold of the hose!

For You, Dad

Hey Mimi & Papa--can't wait to see you!

Happy Fourth!

For the July 4th weekend, we met up with Pop & Essie in Huntsville, AL. We had a great time!!!

We went to the Space Museum in Huntsville, where we got to see lots of space shuttles. Justin's dad used to work on navigational systems with NASA. Very cool!

Trevor's eyes were SO big looking at all the space shuttles (which were so enormous that I couldn't get a pic of any of them)...

We were gearing up to go watch the fireworks, and saw that Trevor REALLY didn't feel okay. You can see the first of it in this picture, but it got so much worse. He was crying, and in a good bit of pain. His poor tummy!

After a night resting back at the hotel, Trevor was feeling much better, and was back to his happy self the next day.

Happy belated Fourth of July!

I Did This!

Our friend Carolyn Hagen once said,
"When was the last time you did something for the first time?"

While Justin was away, I decided (perhaps in a moment of temporary insanity) to take on the yard. I wanted to tear out one of the bushes in the front, mow the lawn, put down some fresh mulch...What I unearthed was one heck of a termite problem, a root system on that little bush that gave me one heck of a run for my money, and the realization that I have NEVER used a lawnmower, nor a weedwhacker, in my life!

Well, the Terminix guy came and sprayed the next day. And I got that stinkin' bush out of the ground (Bush + roots = 9 days of work). And thanks to Liz Kaiser's lesson in lawn mowing, I moved my first lawn.


I was actually kind of excited to do something new--an accomplishment!

That being said, now that Justin's back from the Dominican, that lawn mower is ALL HIS!

Where that bush used to be...

Co-Pays, Specialists, and Ear-Tubes (Oh, My)!

July is just a crazy month. Started off with vaccinations for Trevor, and will end up with an 18-month well-visit (vaccinations there, too) for Aila. On July 20th, BOTH Trevor and Aila will spend their morning at Kennestone Hospital getting ear tubes put in. So here is Trevor's visit to Dr. McGee...

Then we were off to the Gastrointestinal specialist for Trevor...

...who, incidentally, thought it was SO funny to see the spot on the poster
where the poop comes out....

After that appointment, we headed to Harry's for some good high-fiber stuff...

Phew! All these doctor visits are exhausting!