Memories...

**WARNING**

This post is gonna be a little sappy on my part. When you read why, you'll understand. Just deal with it.

My baby, no, my toddler is getting ready to turn 3! THREE people. I am freaking out. My child is growing up way too fast!! Here is why I am so frazzled by this:

-When my husband and I moved into this house, Makayla was 4 months old!!!
-Makayla started walking, talking, going to school while in this house.
-It's only been three years! Where did the time go?
-Makayla will be in the grade level I teach this next school year! Ahhh!

Now let me give you some visual perspective....

Makayla only 1 day old!! She was already smiling!!

She was one cool cat....

And happy, did I mention that??

4 Generations at Makayla's 1st Birthday Party

This was at her 2 yr. Birthday party!! She finally got some hair!!!

Fall 2008, she is 2 in this pic!

Makayla over Christmas 2008! What a cutie pie!

So this is the year of me losing my mind! Makayla turning 3, and I am turning the big 3-0 as well!! 2009 is shaping up to be one heck of a year!!

Mama G

Rest in Peace Sweet Angel

I am not sure if I ever mentioned them in this blog, but we have some good friends named the Olsen's. They are the sweetest family with 2 adorable girls. Mark and Tammy (parents) are probably about 10-15 years older than Phil and I, and Phil and Mark used to work together at Phil's current job. Mark took a better job out in Phoenix back in 2005. During that time also, Tammy was pregnant with their 3rd child, a girl they named Briannah. Well, Tammy's due date was right around the time Hurricane Rita came blowing through, so while they were evacuating, Tammy went into labor. Briannah was a beautiful little baby. Tammy and the girls finally made their way to Phoenix and they were all doing great. But several months later, in December, Tammy noticed Briannah was not hitting the typical baby milestones and was not gaining much weight. They took her in for some tests and found that she had an inoperable brain tumor that wrapped itself around her optic nerve. The news was devastating, but they vowed to help her any way they could. They heard about the controversial Burzynski clinic here in Houston and made an appointment. (This was after several other failed attempts of treatment.) The clinic offered some hope, but not a cure and started her on some powerful medications and treatment. For the next year and a half, Briannah made huge progress! The tumor started shrinking, she was gaining weight, she was starting to talk, she could finally sit up by herself, and lots of other things! We were all so hopeful that she would have some wonderful quality of life and be able to live with this tumor. One of the side effects though, was the medicine affected the sodium levels in her body and she didn't retain enough, but they were fixing that through medication. She was also having seizures, but was not having as many since being on the new medicines.
However, 3-4 nights ago, Tammy noticed Briannah was very lethargic and not her typical self. She immediately called 911 and an ambulance came to take her to the hospital. She died twice in the ambulance, but they resuscitated her back both times. When they go to the hospital though, she was not breathing on her own, so they immediately put her on life support. They found that now her body had way too much sodium and apparently that is much much worse than not having enough. Her kidneys started to fail and the situation was not looking good. However, on Friday Briannah started to breath on her own and she seemed to start improving just a little, but by Saturday morning, she got worse again. They tried to put her on dialysis, but couldn't get the tubes into her little body. Mark and Tammy made a gut-retching decision. They took her off life support. They didn't want her to suffer anymore. Our precious little Briannah went to be with the Lord at 6:30 pm, January 24th. Our thoughts and prayers are with our dear friends as they go through this terrible time.

If you would like to read their journey or send condolences, you can visit their website here:
http://www.easysite.com/babybriannah

Please pray for our sweet friends as they deal with this tragedy.
Mama G

Things I have learned being a home owner....

So June will mark our 3 yr. anniversary of living in our first home! Our house was built in '69, so we knew there would be some maintenance issues we would have to deal with, but there were some other things that really surprised us! Here are just a few:

• Older homes probably need new paint jobs every 3 years. When we first moved in, there was not one crack...now there is at least 1 or more in the majority of the rooms!
  
• Just because you replace your AC doesn't guarantee a lower electric bill! The house itself is not energy efficient, so that definitely hurts the wallet! Ouch!
• Some Homeowners Associations just suck.... end of story.
• Having to deal with wild animals...we have seen possums, rats, armadillos and raccoons all in our yard/garage.
  
• Having some good friends move away :-(
• Making some new friends! :-)

So all in all it has been a pretty good experience! It will be nice when we eventually move into a bigger house though! When we get pregnant again, we really feel like we will need a lot more space, so we will definitely get a 2 story house! I'm sure that will bring on a whole new set of surprises!

Here's my question to you all: What things did you encounter as a new home owner?

Don't forget to follow!

Hey friends,
Just wanted to send out a quick reminder that I have put up a place here to the right where you can follow this blog! Just click it and it will put you up on my board. This will also help generate some advertising for your own blog! When someone clicks your picture, it will show them what blogs you have!! Hey, you can't beat free advertising right?! Ok, so I hope you all will help me with this! Thanks!!


Mama G

Toothpaste...really?

So, some interesting things have been happening around here. We've made some New Year's Resolutions and I am happy to report that we have made good on at least one of them! One of Phil and I's big resolutions was to clean up our house and garage, and I don't mean just a regular ol' cleaning job. I am talking about a complete overhaul of the house. I think I have mentioned before that we do not have a functioning attic for storage. There is no room since all the ac insulation takes up all the space up there, so we have no place to put our boxes except our closets. This is a MAJOR problem. This is compounded by the fact that since we do have our own home, both of our parents decided to give us all our childhood stuff to keep. Ugh.

Well, we rearranged our guest room and den and completely clean out our garage! Whohoo!! We are not done with all the rooms, but we have made a really good start! I am really proud of the work we've done so far!

Makayla had some resolutions too and apparently one of them was to eat more toothpaste in the year 2009. You heard me, eat toothpaste. We have caught her several times in the bathroom squeezing the life out of her Little Bear toothpaste and just going to town. Last night when we dropped her off at my in-laws she promptly went into their bedroom while we were talking with them. After a minute, I asked where she was. We went looking and found her hiding in their closet behind their mini trampoline with my MIL's toothpaste in her mouth eating it. It was all over her face too! What is this about?! What in the world possesses her to eat this stuff?? I mean, I guess I can't complain too much.. at least it is keeping her breath fresh! I have a friend who's sister used to eat dirt!! Seriously!! She would just take a handful and just shove it in her mouth!! At least Makayla doesn't do that!!

So that's the lastest at our house! Fun times! So tell me kind readers, what were some of your resolutions for the New Year??