Birthday Celebration, Part 2

We had a great Saturday afternoon! The girls were exhausted from an early morning filled with fun (see earlier post), so they went down for their naps just after 1. They both woke up right at 3:00, and we needed to leave at 3:15 to go to Lily's party! We had Lily's party at The Little Gym which is where Lily has taken gymnastics classes, summer day camps and currently, dance classes. She loves it there! Lily's other three birthday parties have been at our home, and while they have been fun, we thought this would be a stress-free party, and thankfully, we were right. The Little Gym did an awesome job. Lily had a great time, and we have many wonderful memories from the party!

When we arrived, Tara, Morgan and Maria introduced themselves as the teachers for the day, and they did a fantastic job. They let the kids start playing while everyone arrived. Lily was so excited to see so many of her friends. My nieces and nephew came, and both Lily and Mia adore them. Lily was thrilled that her friends from school, Sierra and Ally, were able to come; it's so fun for me to see the friendships that Lily is making. Several of our friends and their kids came too, and Lily always has fun with them. Once everyone arrived, Tara got all the kids in a circle on the mat. She introduced herself and then had Lily sit on top of a big cushion. She then asked each child their name and favorite ice cream flavor. I was really impressed with her ability to remember all the kids' names; there were 15 in all. They went over the basic rules of the gym and then got ready to have fun.

They started out by giving each of the kids part of a pool noodle which became their dance partners. They had fun running, jumping, skipping and banging their noodles on the mat while fun, upbeat music was playing. It's always great to hear squeals and laughter coming from kids!

Then they put all the noodles up and let the kids have free reign for a few minutes. I think it's a great idea to give them some "downtime" from the structured play every so often; it seems to keep their attention better. They gave this free time between each activity, and the kids loved it. 

Mia having fun while McKayla helped Zac across.

 Hadley and Molly both liked the beam too.

 William tried the rings while Vivian liked the low bar.

 Parker enjoyed swinging with Zac and Hadley while Macey looked on.

Mia trying the bars then McKayla showing how its done.

 Next, Tara and Morgan set up these two huge wedge-looking pieces of mat and told the kids they got to knock over and slide on the "cheese wedges." It made such a loud thud as the wedge would hit the mat which made them laugh really hard. The kids did a great job taking turns, and I think Mia enjoyed it the most. I wish you could have seen the look on her face when she got to knock it down! 

After a little bit of free time, it was time for the inflatable track which is one of Lily's favorite activities at the gym. They have all the kids lie down on the flattened track and then flip the switch to have it blow up. The kids loved this little ride! Once it was inflated, they got to jump down, flip down, run down and scoot down the track. Inflatables are always a hit with this age group! After some time on the track, the kids lay down again and help it deflate; then they have fun stomping out the air bubbles inside. 

After it was deflated, it was time for a little bit more free play.

Next up, the kids make a train and put their hands on the shoulders of the person in front of them. Then as they sing Happy Birthday, their train walks over to the snack room stopping for some hand soap along the way.  The gym provides juice for all the kids, but we brought the cake. Lily loves the new PBS show called "The Cat in the Hat Knows A Lot About That," so we had our local bakery (McEntyre's which Lily loves to visit) make a Cat in the Hat cake; it turned out great, and Lily was so excited about it. Everyone sang and then Lily asked me to blow out the candles; she said she doesn't know how to blow out candles yet, but I think nervousness played a bigger role since she does a great job blowing bubbles. Anyway, all the kids and adults enjoyed cake and a few minutes of rest.

After cake it was time to go back out to the gym for one last activity - the big multi-color parachute. I remember loving these as a kid, and Lily seems to love them too. They pull them up, push them down and shake them all around; they all loved getting to hide under the parachute too. Lily's highlight came at the end when she sat in the middle of the parachute and everyone else gave her a ride as they turned it in a big circle. They finished this game up by throwing the parachute into the air to see if it would stick to the ceiling. Lastly, all the kids gathered in a small circle and laid down on the tummies. They did one last birthday song for Lily which included banging their hands and feet on the mat...always fun to make noise!

After this, everyone came out to put on socks and shoes and collect their party favor. We had small Dr. Suess books for each child and Little Gym had tied a balloon around each one. Then it was time to tell everyone goodbye and thank you. 

 We were so grateful that Meme and Granny were able to come see the fun!

I know Lily absolutely loved this party. She had a huge smile glued to her face the entire time. As she would run around, she would run past me with her arm out to give me a high-five. She had a blast! By far, this has been her best birthday party yet!

Birthday Celebration, Part 1

Today we celebrated Lily's 4th birthday! I cannot believe she is turning 4 on Monday! Today was an absolutely gorgeous day which made it a great day to celebrate our sweet girl. Our day started early as Lily came in at 6:45, and Mia was wide awake by 7:15. We decided this was a good time to surprise Lily with her birthday present from us. See the picture below...

She and Mia were both so excited about the new picnic table! We knew they would love to have a place on the deck to eat, do projects and enjoy the outside. I love this picture below as they had just got a glimpse of the table and are now looking back at me in pure excitement.

So happy!
Trying out the new table and lovin' it!

We decided to treat Lily to a special breakfast since we had some time this morning. She has three princess-type cookbooks that she loves to look through. A couple of days ago, I asked her what her favorite recipe out of the books was, and she picked the marshmallow lollipops. I decided we would make those plus a few others because she loves to cook. So, after showing the girls the new picnic table, Lily and I set about making an...interesting...breakfast. Here's a picture of Lily stirring up the freshly made strawberry milk. Turns out she didn't like it a whole lot, but Mia enjoyed it.

Next up came the Sea Crunch Bagels. We sliced up mini-bagels, put a little butter on them and then Lily had a great time decorating them with our different color sugars. Here's a picture of them just before going into the oven.

She was so proud of her artistic bagel work!

Mia was having fun too!

Getting a quick snack of marshmallow.

Of all things, I realized this morning I had forgotten to buy marshmallows. I couldn't believe it. Ryan was kind enough to run to Kroger and buy a pack for us while we worked on the other items. We stuck the marshmallows on craft sticks, melted and colored white chocolate and then let the girls swirl the marshmallows in the chocolate. Lily loved watching the batches of white chocolate become neon pink, purple, orange and green. After they were dipped in chocolate, they decorated them with princess accessories. The pack I bought had gold tiaras, red apples, pearls and blue glass slippers. Lily really seemed to enjoy it. Mia had fun swirling the marshmallows and then licking off the chocolate. Here they are swirling and decorating.

Marshmallow lollipops!

Once everything was prepared, I pulled out the strawberry banana jello I made the night before and made jigglers in the shapes of tulips, bunnies and the letter H. Lily was very excited about this. Here's Lily showing off her plate with jello, pink bagel and pink marshmallow lollipop. Obviously, this sugar-laden breakfast is not what we typically serve, but hey, it's fun to do something different sometimes!

Yum...jello!

Mia enjoyed breakfast too. She also enjoyed a banana with her breakfast. Technically this was her second breakfast of the morning as she had a container of yogurt while Lily and I made the milk and bagels. This little one can put food away like I have never seen!

I had also made a snack from Lily's cookbook of Multicolor Goldfish (she is fascinated by those), raisins and pretzels. Lily thought it looked really cool, but we decided to wait until snack time to try them (okay, except one yellow goldfish) instead of adding that to breakfast. It was really fun making all these things with Lily and Mia out of these cute little cookbooks. What a great way to start a birthday celebration!

We finished and cleaned up breakfast just before 10. We decided to change clothes and head to the North Georgia State Fair for a little bit because it was such a beautiful day. We arrived about 10:50, and received a pleasant surprise when they said all admission before 11 was free. Sweet! We spent about an hour or so visiting all the animals that were out. The girls loved this! You can see Mia waving "Hi!" to the elephants in the picture below. you will also notice Mia has on her otter backpack leash that Grandpops and Grandma Jan bought her from the Aquarium when they visited recently. This is the first time we have used it, and it is awesome! With Lily, I always thought it was crazy that a parent would put their child on a leash...well, never say never! This was great! We didn't have to worry about Mia wanting to get out of her stroller (not to mention strollers aren't allowed everywhere), and we didn't have to hold Mia the whole time. It made our whole experience so much more relaxing. She enjoyed it too because it allowed her the freedom to walk around a little bit. She would walk as far out to my right as it would go and stare and/or point and/or squeal at the animals or rides; then she would go as far to the left as it would go and repeat. She was fascinated and loving her freedom.

They had four huge tigers out too. Thankfully you couldn't get too close to these guys!

Inside the barn they had lots of ducks, chickens, roosters, goats, birds, horses, llamas, cows and rabbits. I was impressed with Mia's ability to recognize the animals. Both girls really enjoyed this area.

I was very impressed with this tall camel. He kept sticking his head over the fence which I thought was funny. They also had a zebra, alpaca, turkey, ostrich and goats under this tent.

Lily and Mia both loved picking up hay and feeding it to this tiny goat through the fence.

After visiting with all the animals, we walked into the ride and food area. Lily wanted to ride the farris wheel which we agreed to until we realized she wasn't tall enough; maybe next year. Then Lily got her heart set on the game where you use a sledgehammer to hit a target and it moves a little weight up to ring a bell. Obviously, she isn't strong enough to make that happen, but the vendor was very kind and helped her so the bell rung when she hit the target; she won a pink ball for her effort, and she was thrilled. We ended up not riding any rides. Neither girl seemed too interested in the carousel, so we opted out of that. All the kid rides were single rider only, so no adults could go with them. There was no way we could let Mia go on by herself, and we doubted Lily would want to go by herself. So we bought a big lemonade to share, nachos for the girls and corn dogs for us and enjoyed a nice lunch under some shade. We headed out about 1 and went to McEntyre's Bakery to pick up Lily's birthday cake for her afternoon party. Both girls were exhausted when we got home, so they took naps. Ryan and I finished cleaning up from the morning, he took a nap and I took a shower. Then it was time for Lily's party! More about that in the next post. This was a great way to start celebrating Lily's birthday!

End of September

I cannot believe today is the last day of September! Where has the month gone? I tell you what, my mind has been going a thousand miles an hour in a hundred different directions this month. I feel like I have barely stopped. Ryan took a couple of days a week or so ago to go to the lake and "download his brain." I think that's a perfect description of what I need to do too! I realized tonight I have not taken any pictures of the kids since September 7. It's not like we have been doing tons of things (actually, we were sick for a lot of that time), but still, I can't believe how few pictures I have taken recently. We have a lot of fun stuff coming up the next few months though, so I think I'll make up for it soon. Anyway, when I realized this tonight, I grabbed the camera and snapped a few bedtime pictures of the girls. So, here you go!

Mia still has the most beautiful blue eyes I have ever seen.

She is really getting into books now. Here she is before bed "reading" her animal book. She is especially fond of finding the goat (aka "goad") and fish (aka "feesh"). It still cracks me up that when you point to the lion and ask "what does a lion say?" she will whisper "roar." All other animal sounds she does in her normal voice, but not that one! We typically read two to three books together before bed time, and then we say our prayers. She is so sweet. We will be playing and reading, and then I'll say "Okay Mia, it's time to say our prayers." She stops right then and folds her hands together while I say a short prayer. When I say "amen," she smiles and says "AMEEN!" So sweet.
Lily showing off the rainbow artwork she made in Mission Friends class Wednesday night. She was so proud of her "colored Cheerios" (you probably know them as Fruit Loops). Lily also mentioned how she ate a lot of them before gluing them down ("I ate 10 at a time" is what I believe she said). As if we couldn't tell from the sugar high that had her running in circles way after bed time last night! It's really a cute little picture though. Lily asked to hang it up so Mia wouldn't get a hold of it; she has a tendency to tear the pictures which upset Lily greatly. We hung it on her closet door, so she could admire it whenever she wants to.
Mia showing off her teeth. Slowly but surely, they are coming in! She is also so excited about her new pajamas. These are her first two-piece pajamas. I absolutely love little ones in footie, one-piece pajamas, but Mia's a big girl now, so she is into big girl pajamas. She wore them for the first time the other night, and she smiled so big when she showed them off to Ryan and me. She is so precious!

Mia's First Sentence

Our sweet Mia said her first sentence today. When Ryan brought the girls home from school, he gave them each a snack: Curious George gummies for Lily and a few vanilla wafers for Mia. When Mia finished, she walked over to Ryan and said "Daddy, Meme cacker peaz." Translation - "Daddy, Meme crackers (aka graham crackers which my grandmother, Meme, always gives to the girls when we go visit) please." Ryan had no problems agreeing to that! She is saying so many words every day now, but this is the first time we have heard her make them into a sentence. Our little one is getting so big!!!

Pull-Ups are Gone!

Finally, Lily has stopped wearing her Pull-Ups at nap time! I am thrilled! For a few weeks now, she has been wearing them to nap, but most days she would wake up and they would still be dry. Well last Monday, my mom came to stay with the girls after being gone for a week and a half to California. She told Lily it was time to change into her Pull-Up for nap time, and Lily responded "I don't wear Pull-Ups for naps anymore." Mom said okay and put her down in her big girl panties...it worked! She has been dry and Pull-Up free ever since! We're down to just Nighttime Pull-Ups now, and I don't have the first clue to get her to stop needing those. Oh well, it will happen at some point, but I right now I will be excited about this step!

Catching Up

Finally, it seems as though the germs have left the Hooks house! All weekend Lily was a little hoarse and Mia still had diarrhea, but it seems we are now all back to "normal." Here's hoping we stay this way for awhile because man, that wasn't fun.

Even though everyone wasn't at 100%, we had a nice weekend. Saturday late morning, the four of us went to the Taste of Smyrna which was great. It was a little warm, but there were lots of shaded areas to enjoy. Tons of restaurants come out and offer samples of their food for small prices, typically anywhere from 50 cents to $4. We had Williamson Brothers (BBQ), Crepe Revolution (Nutella crepes), The Melting Pot (brownies, pound cake and strawberries with chocolate drizzled over) and Kenny's Pies (mini key lime). Lily and I also shared a lemonade which is always a treat, and both girls LOVED the Blue Raspberry Hawaiian Shave Ice that they shared. Their tongues were bright blue, and they thought that was hilarious. The photographer from The Bright Side (a local newspaper) came by and snapped their pictures; how fun if it ends up in next month's edition!

Ryan and Mia stayed a little longer and enjoyed some of the carnival-like atmosphere (jumpies, exotic bird show, etc) while Lily and I headed out Sierra's birthday party. Sierra is her best friend from school. Everyday when she comes home from school, I hear a report on what Sierra had to eat, what she wore, what color her project was, etc. We also hear about Shelby and Ally, but it's usually about Sierra. I love that Lily has made her own friends; kids she truly enjoys playing with who aren't necessarily kids of our friends (though we like when she plays with them too!). She couldn't wait to get to Sierra's party. It was at a place called DACS Kids which I had never heard of. It was a really neat place. It is an inside playground that looks like a huge pirate ship! They have sand all around it, jumpies to play in and crawl through and little cannon shooters that launch foam balls really high into the air. Lily immediately went to one of the cannons and just kept laughing and having fun. A few minutes after we arrived, Sierra and Ally saw her and came running up. She immediately started playing with them and having a great time. It was so much fun to watch her! Lily also loved the princess castle cake and seeing Sierra open all her presents. This really was a fun party.

On our way home, we stopped into Publix to pick up things for the evening's dinner. Ryan's friend, Allison, was going to join us. Ryan and Allison went to Vestavia Hills High School together, and have stayed friends for a long time. She has spent the last three years in Egypt as a math teacher at a Christian School. She has recently moved back home to Birmingham, but she was in Atlanta for the weekend. We always love to hear about people's travels, so we were thrilled she was able to visit for a bit. She brought some great scrapbooks to look through, and she had lots of cool stories from the places she visited and people she met. The girls were both very well behaved and enjoyed having Allison there too. We all had a wonderful time visiting with her; it's always great to catch up with an old friend.

On Sunday, Ryan, Lily and I went to church while Mia stayed home with some of Ryan's family that was in town visiting. After church, Ryan headed down to the Falcons game with some friends, so Lily and I enjoyed lunch together at Moes. Since Mia wasn't with us, we were able to sit on the high stools against the wall; she thought that was awesome. I really enjoyed getting some one on one time with Lily; she is so much fun to talk with! She went down for her nap soon after we got home. Since Mia had taken a morning nap, she didn't want anything to do with an afternoon nap! This let us have some one-on-one time too which was nice. I am amazed everyday at how big Mia is getting. She is talking so much more, and she is just downright fun to be with. We are so blessed to have these two sweet girls!

The girls are out of school this week for Fall Break, so we're getting to spend more time with them. Ryan spent most of Monday with them before my mom came over. Mom and Dad just returned from a trip to California (they had an awesome time), and the girls were so excited to see her. They brought Mia a cute mix-and-match puzzle that she has had so much fun with. Lily also loves the book they brought her; it shows you how to trace your hand into different animal shapes, and then you can color, glue googly eyes and pom-poms (all included) on to decorate. It's a really cool book, and Lily is having a blast with it. Dad was also able to stop by for just a minute on his way home from work, so they were excited to see him too. After dinner, we cleaned up and then a few friends came over for Girls Night Out which is always fun. Ryan kept the girls downstairs where they played and had fun until bedtime.

He also stayed with the girls a bit this morning while I had a work meeting, but then I came home so he could go to his lunch meeting. I took the girls to McEntyre's Bakery which is always delicious. Ryan had already fed them lunch, so they were excited to get little cupcakes as a special treat while I enjoyed lunch. Lily picked the vanilla cupcake with orange leaf on it while Mia wanted the vanilla cupcake with red leaf. After that we ran by The Dollar Tree to pick up a few things, and then we headed home. We had a lot of fun just playing together (I love it when they play nicely together!), and then mom arrived to take over, so I could return to work. It's been a nice day, and we'll head out to church in just a little bit. We ate a delicious dinner at church on Wednesday evening, and then Lily really enjoys going to choir and mission friends. Mia also has fun in her nursery class where they make the cutest little craft projects and sing sweet songs. Ryan and I join our friends in a study too; this semester we're discussing predestination versus free will and the historical and Biblical aspects of the two. It's quite an interesting topic that gets some lively discussions going!

Well, I think that gets us caught back up on what's going on in our lives. I realize this isn't the most exciting stuff in the world for everyone to read, but I enjoy writing it all down to remember what life is like right now. Our girls are growing up so quickly, and I want to always remember these sweet and precious ages. While working on our scrapbooks, I always read the blog again to help me remember what was going on at that time. Last week I was working on early 2009 (I realize I am really behind in my scrapbooking!), and I just couldn't believe reading some of the blog posts. Mia was only a few months old, and Lily was just getting into conversations. I just kept thinking "I can't believe how different they are now!" as I read it. So, if you read this blog regularly, thank you for allowing me to share our everyday lives with you!

Such Girls

Last night I needed to do a load of laundry for the girls, so I decided to start pulling out the Fall/Winter consignment sale clothes I purchased a few weeks ago to start getting them clean. Lily was thrilled with her new clothes! She kept saying things like "Oh, this is so pretty!" "I am going to look so cutie-tootie in this!" and "This is great!" My favorite though was "Oh my goodness, I cannot believe it!" to which I asked "What can't you believe?" She replied "I can't believe I have all of these new clothes!" She was such a girl!

Mia loved seeing the new shoes I had purchased too. She is such a little shoe fiend. We're in trouble later on if that habit keeps up!

On Monday evening, I also showed Lily their Halloween costumes. Mia will be a monkey (we're always saying "monkey see, monkey do" with her), and Lily will be Tinkerbell. She's all about Tinkerbell right now. Anyway, while Ryan and I were eating outside Monday evening, I left Lily's costume sitting out on the sofa. When I was consoling Lily after her "coughing incident" (see previous post), she said "I thought you were in your room so I looked in there but you weren't there so I thought you were in the living room so I looked but you weren't there so I looked at my costume and then walked to the kitchen..." While I felt really awful for her and incredibly guilty that Ryan and I were enjoying a meal outside while she got sick, it made me giggle a little to realize that even though she was sick and scared she couldn't find us, she took a moment to look at her costume again. I'm glad she is so excited about it.

Such sweet little girly-girls!

The Sickness Saga

Last Saturday's post talked mostly about Mia being sick with croup. Not fun at all. The virus stayed with our little one through Monday. It completely threw her off schedule. She was incredibly tired, cranky and clingy; she barely ate. I'm pretty sure she has lost some weight which isn't very good for a little one. She had awful diarrhea waking her up during the night and getting her incredibly messy during the day. We were easily doing at least one load of laundry a day for her clothes. It also led to an awful diaper rash for her which is painful. We kept her out of church on Sunday and out of school on Monday. Finally though, on Monday afternoon, it seemed she was back almost to normal, so we thought the germs were gone.

On Monday night, we put the girls to bed and then Ryan and I enjoyed a fantastic steak dinner on our new deck; it was a beautiful evening, and it was nice to have a nice, relaxing dinner together. We had the monitor out so we could keep any eye on the girls. Everything appeared fine, and about 5 minutes after the last time we checked it, we decided to go back in. When we opened the door, Lily was standing there bawling. I asked what was wrong and she said she had tried to go to the potty by herself to cough (aka throw up), but she couldn't make it; then she couldn't find us and was upset. Sure enough, the hallway from her room was covered in throw up, and she was pale as she could be. I held her for a few minutes while Ryan cleaned everything up and then we helped her back to bed. She stayed there the rest of the night.

However, at 3:30 that morning, Mia woke up and was crying out for Daddy. Ryan went in and she was absolutely covered in diarrhea. So, he helped her take a shower to clean her while I changed her sheets, disinfected the mattress, tried to get the smell out of her room and got clean pajamas out. About 4, we put her back to bed but then she woke up at 7:00, ravenous. Ryan stayed home with both of the girls on Tuesday; it was a rough day as they were both whiny from not feeling well.

On Wednesday morning, Lily threw up just a tiny little bit, so we decided to keep her out of school even though she seemed perfectly fine. She was thrilled when she learned she would get to come to work with me. Ryan already had other plans for the day, and since Wednesday was an extension deadline for my corporate clients, I needed to go in (Liz was sick in Birmingham and my parents are out of town). She asked to wear her favorite yellow dress. We brought some Color Wonders and the portable DVD player with us, and she did great being up there. She made me 5 or 6 pictures and decorated my office with them. She loved the water cooler and wanted to fill up her cup multiple times. She met several of my clients who stopped in, and they all loved her. We picked Mia up at 1 and then headed back up to the office for about 20 minutes to wrap up a few things that were due that day. We stopped in to see Wayne before we left and then headed home at 2 for naps. Both girls were exhausted and slept well. We all went to church that evening and Liz met us at home after that.

Other than Mia's diarrhea (which is just now starting to get better), I think we're all back to healthy. What a week and a half it has been though! Here's hoping this winter won't be germ-filled!

Hangers or Hooks

On Wednesday night after church, my friend Sonja called to tell me a story about her middle child, Anna. Anna is just a couple of months younger than Lily, so they are in the same class at church. As they were leaving, Anna was telling Sonja about playing with her friend Lily at church. She then said "You know her Mommy, Lily Hangers." Sonja was confused because she doesn't know a "Lily Hangers." Then she realized what Anna was meaning, so she said "Do you mean Lily Hooks?" and said "Yea, Lily Hooks Hangers!" I thought that was really funny, especially if you knew how absolutely adorable Anna is!

Sick Hooks

This week has not been much fun around the Hooks household. On Monday evening and all day Tuesday, Ryan had a stomach bug that left him not feeling very well. On Wednesday night, Lily said "Mommy, my tummy hurts." She tried using the potty but then seemed just fine, so I didn't think much about it. Well, about 1:30 AM on Thursday, she came into our room and said "Daddy, I have to cough in the potty." She says "cough" when she means "throw up" because she knows she coughs things up. Anyway, Ryan jumped out of bed and held her hair back as she threw up several times into the toilet. After that, I cleaned her up and just held for a little bit before helping her back into bed. By the time she got up Thursday morning though, she seemed fine so I think something just didn't sit well on her tummy.

Also on Wednesday night, but before Lily got up, Mia was up for awhile crying so I held her for awhile because she seemed to be a little off. I could tell she was getting sick because she sounded a little wheezy and warm. However, on Thursday, Mia obviously wasn't herself. She seemed hot, she was hoarse and she just wasn't acting herself. Around 2:00 I talked to her doctor's office and made an appointment for Friday morning. Well at 2:30, Liz called to say Mia had thrown up all over the two of them, and could Ryan or I come home so she could clean up and we could check on Mia. I immediately left the office and was scared when I got home and heard Mia; it sounded like she was struggling for every breath. I called the doctor's office and asked them to see us that afternoon; if they couldn't, we were going to urgent care. Luckily, they told me to come on in because Dr White's partner had an opening right then; I love this pediatric practice. We were sitting in the waiting room for a few minutes, when a nurse came out and called for another patient. She looked over at Mia, and said "I'm going to take these people back, but then I want to come back out and check her breathing." It made me feel better that I wasn't crazy for thinking she sounded awful, and they wanted to make sure this wasn't an emergency. She came back out a minute later, and lifted up Mia's shirt. She said it didn't appear she was struggling to breath because her stomach wasn't sucking in around the ribs, but she wanted to get us back soon to test her oxygen level. A few minutes later, a room opened up so they brought us back. She ran an oxygen test on her, and it came back at 99% which is really good. That means she just sounds horrible, but she isn't actually struggling for breath; what a relief. Dr Miller came in later, and after examining her diagnosed her with croup. She recommended a steroid (both in office and by prescription) and a breathing treatment to try to start reducing the inflammation. Mia was not happy with this treatment. She was crying the whole time as I held a mask over her mouth and nose. Luckily though, we started to see improvement in her behavior right away.

She has been steadily improving, but she still isn't well. The steroid stimulates her appetite a little bit which is good; you know she isn't feeling well when she doesn't eat well. She is still hoarse though which is just pathetic sounding. We are having to sleep with the monitor really high in case she starts crying during the night. In fact, Ryan and Liz were at the Braves game last night, so I was home with the girls. About 10:30, Mia started crying, so I went in to hold her. I was in there about an hour because she is just so sad right now. It's heart-breaking. The info from the doctor says croup typically lasts about 5 to 7 days; I really hope this ends soon.


All this to say, it hasn't been the most upbeat week around our home. Here's hoping everyone makes a complete recovery soon!

Fall is Here!

Fall has arrived! I know it's not technically correct, but to me, Labor Day always signals the start of Fall which happens to be my favorite time of year. The weather starts to cool off, the leaves change color, football starts, my three favorite people have birthdays...it's all wonderful! We had a great long holiday weekend, and I hope you did too. Here are some details from our weekend...

We had originally planned to head to Tallahassee with some friends to see FSU take on Samford. However, those plans changed a couple of weeks ago, and we expected to just enjoy the day at home taking in all the games. Then, a friend unexpectedly offered us his tickets to the UGA versus Louisiana-Lafayette game in Athens. Thankfully, my parents were available and willing to watch the girls, so we got up that morning and headed up to Athens. It took about 2 hours to get there and find a place to park, and we walked into the stadium right at kickoff. Even though neither of us are UGA fans (in fact, we typically root against them!), it was so much fun to be at Sanford Stadium! It's such a great atmosphere, and it was so exciting to be at a college game again. This was so much fun! While we were in Athens, my parents took the girls to see Molly cheerlead in her first game. Mom shot some video, and it was adorable! All these little 5-year-olds were precious. Lily loved it and talked about it for hours afterwards. I know they had a great time hanging out with Granna and Papa. We got home from Athens about 5, picked the girls up and headed to Moes for dinner. Really, we just wanted to eat outside on a patio. It was an amazingly beautiful day! After the girls went to bed, Ryan and Brian started putting together the new grill Ryan bought on Friday. It took a few hours, but it looked great! Unfortunately, we didn't have the right adaptor for the natural gas line, but we knew we could pick one up on Sunday afternoon. While they worked, I relaxed with my new book inside (Seeds of Turmoil by Bryant Wright if you're interested), and I was able to watch the beginning of Game Day that we had recorded. I absolutely love Big and Rich singing their Game Day "Coming To Your City" each Saturday morning. It gets me ready for a great day of football! Whenever I hear the song during the rest of the year, I change the words to sing the Game Day version instead of the "real" song.

Sunday was Ryan's 32nd birthday. Happy birthday to Ryan! We went to church in the morning, and then to Panera for lunch which was a nice change of pace. After Panera we ran by Home Depot to pick up an adaptor for the grill. After that we went home, and Lily was excited for Ryan to open his birthday presents. She and Mia both helped open his cards and gifts, so they loved that. Then it was nap time; yea! While they napped, Ryan started working on the adaptor. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite the right size, so that started a long process of trying to get everything to fit together. Our friends, the Hendersons and the Caseys, arrived about 4:30 to celebrate Ryan's birthday with us. The guys kept working on the grill and got it ready to go. Ryan made wonderful hamburgers and hot dogs for us all. We had a great time hanging out with our friends and enjoying a delicious dinner. Here are a couple of pictures.

Cake is always delicious. Parker, Lily and Mia really enjoyed it!

On Monday, we all slept in a little bit which was really nice. We decided to go to Waffle House and then head to the zoo. Unfortunately, by the time we got to the zoo, it was packed. We couldn't even find a parking space! We decided to head to a new playground near out home instead, and the girls had a great time. It was pretty crowded too, but they still had fun. By then, it was nap time, and they slept great because they were worn out! We actually woke Mia up after 2.5 hours because we were heading to our church for the first Holy Smoke BBQ. Our class entered the contest and did awesome. Sarah took third place in cakes (out of 30+ cakes), Cullen took second in BBQ chicken and Jeff took first in sauce (both out of about 20 or so entrants). Woo-who! The whole festival was a lot of fun. In addition to all the delicious BBQ and sides, there was funnel cake, lemonade, games, jumpies and music. It was great, and I look forward to this coming back next year.

Overall this was a great holiday weekend! Even though today wasn't a holiday, it continued the fun we were having. While I was at work, Ryan took the girls to the zoo, and they had such a fun time. I love being members there, so we can come and go as we please. They played on the playground a lot today which was a fun treat. Here's a picture of the girls on the the see-saws; they had a blast! After dinner tonight, we enjoyed Popsicles on the new deck. We learned our lesson with stained clothes last time, so this time we stripped the girls down and they loved it.

What a great way to wrap up summer! Hope yours was good too!

Visit with Granny

A few weeks ago, Granny and Aunt Nancy came into town because they were going with my Mom to the lake for a few days. Mom and Dad had our family over for dinner so we could all visit with them before they left. We had such a great time! Of course, the kids always love getting together and playing, and I think Granny and Nancy loved getting to watch them. They are entertaining bunch, that's for sure!

Here is Granny with her five great-grandchildren.

Granny with our girls.
4 generations...Granny, Mom, Me and the Girls.

We always love a visit from our Tennessee family!

Lily's First Braves Game!

Ryan and I took Lily to her first Braves game last night, and we had a blast. She was so excited about going! For the last few weeks, every time she saw them on tv, she would sit down to watch for a little bit, so we thought this would be something fun to do. It was a beautiful evening, and a perfect night to sit out at the stadium. Unfortunately, the Braves didn't do so well against the Mets this night (they had beaten them the previous three nights), but oh well, you can't win them all, right?

Lily decked out in her pink Braves outfit. Both her pinstripe shirt and shorts have the Atlanta "A" on them. Bama had braided her hair, so she looked adorable. She was so excited!

So excited to walk up the stairs at Turner Field. She couldn't wait to get to our seats.
The game started at 7:00, but we decided to get there a little early and eat dinner at the 755 Club. We all shared garlic fries and a pepperoni pizza which were actually really good. Lily was thrilled to get a lemonade to drink. She was impressed with how high up in the stadium we were while eating. I told her we would all stand up and put our hands over our hearts to sing The Star Spangled Banner, so for about 15 minutes before the game, we heard "Is it time to sing yet?" over and over. She stood pretty still when the time came with her little hand over heart; it was precious to see. Here's a picture of us enjoying the lemonade while we waited on our dinner.

Taking it all in while we waited.

Enjoying the view!

Lily thought it was really funny that the chairs closed up on her. She kept getting in and out just to see that happen. There wasn't a big crowd at all which was nice. We were able to spread out a little bit which was really good because it allowed Lily to move around a bit. Ryan surprised her with a Tomahawk because she loved seeing them on tv. She loved it!

It was actually NASCAR night at the game. Even though Ryan and I don't watch NASCAR, it was really cool to see the race cars that came out just before the game started. It's a little difficult to see in this picture, but there were 5 or 6 cars in a row; they are by the Braves' dugout in the picture. When they got about halfway around the outfield, each one took off and went really fast; this impressed all of us!

Around inning 5, we noticed Lily was paying attention to everything except the game. At one point, Ryan asked "Lily, where's the baseball game?" She said "Ummm..." and looked around for a few seconds before laughing and pointing to the field. We decided to go get Dippin' Dots ice cream for a little treat and break. Lily had vanilla, I had strawberry, and we picked up Cookies & Cream for Ryan. As we were walking back to our seats to enjoy with Ryan, Lily looked at all three flavors, and decided that "mine is liciouser than yours." "Licious" is how she says "delicious" so to hear "liciouser" made me laugh.

We thought we would probably only be able to stay a few innings before Lily would become too bored or tired. However, she did great for a long time. In the 7th inning, we could see she was starting to fade quickly though, so we decided to head up to the top of the stadium to play at the Kids Corner. Lily loved these huge Coke chairs to climb in and walk around on.

Seriously, the chairs were HUGE!

Ryan and Lily enjoyed them too.

Tomahawkin' away!

The kids can run the bases on top too. Lily wanted to do it, but didn't want to run by herself, so I agreed to run with her. Fun times!

We headed out in the bottom of the 8th. We were impressed with what a good job Lily did. She loved it, and asked to come back soon. She enjoyed seeing the Gas South fire light up when Hutson got a strike-out, and she didn't freak out (major improvement!) when the fireworks exploded above us when McCann hit a home run. She has talked several times about what came out of the yellow gate; she's referring to the race cars and the inflatable tools that come out to race. She also liked the "ball cap shuffle" on the big screen and watching people dance on the screen. We're so thrilled to have another Braves fan in the house!