Little Alli

Hello everyone. We got to visit with Jamie & Dana and Ina (Jamie's mom) tonight at the hospital. Everyone is in great spirits and Dana is doing incredibly well.

Alli is in the NICU right now because her lungs weren't expanding as much as the doctors would have liked when she breathed. She's on oxygen right now, but is already making great progress. By the time we left, they were only giving her 6% oxygen. She was spitting up a lot of fluid out of her lungs as well. The neonatal nurses told Jamie that she's doing great. They aren't sure right now how long she'll be in the NICU...maybe as long as a week...but everyone is very pleased at how well she is doing.

So please keep little Alli in your prayers and thank the Lord at how well she is already doing. The boys haven't gotten to meet her yet, since she is in the NICU, but hopefully at least Spencer will get to meet her tomorrow. =)

Aletheia Jordyn Maize has arrived!!

Aletheia Jordyn Maize arrived this morning at 7:47 a.m. She weighed 7 pounds, 13.5 ounces and has a cleft in her chin.

Both baby and Dana are doing great!! Can't wait to meet her!

Fun in the pool

Jamie and Dana have a community pool behind their house and they invited us over after church on Sunday for a cookout and some fun in the pool. The kids had a blast. Especially with Jamie throwing them in the water. (Don't worry, Grandma. He wasn't throwing them as high as it looks. I was just sitting down, so it looks like they are higher than they really were.

Here's Lydia.

Here's Bekah.

And here's Bekah trying to throw Lydia in.

Here are Nathan and Spencer.

And Nathan jumping in with everything he's got. =)

And here's Mercey.

And Ben.

Another layout to share

This one is from March 2006---trying to catch up!!

Click on the picture to enlarge it.

Just a quick pic from this weekend

I'm rapidly running out of lunch break, so I wanted to post this picture from this weekend before I return to work...

Will post more later!

Just to make you smile...

Daddy's Girl

Here's a layout I did of Lydia with David. You can click on it to enlarge it.

Baby Shower for Dana

Well, Saturday, we had Dana’s baby shower and it was so much fun. Kaleena made an AWESOME baby shower cake, complete with a little clothesline with girl clothes. It was so amazing. I made a diaper cake with some diapers I had left over from a game.

The first game was a funny one that Kaleena came up with. We printed off pictures of Jamie and Dana and then people had to design what they thought the baby would look like using their two faces. It was hilarious. Some of the faces were SO funny.

Here’s Dana with part of her face cut out. =)

Then we played the dirty diaper game. We had melted candy bars in diapers. Then, each person had to look at the diaper and decide what kind of candy bar was in it by looking at it and smelling it. Kathy got all nine correct!!

Then we each made a scrapbook page for Dana with a Bible verse or a little bit of advice. Then she chose her favorite and put each page in the scrapbook, ready to add little pictures of Aletheia (Ali, Allie, Ally, Alli, they haven’t decided how to spell the nickname yet.). I was so busy making my own page and helping people find the right scrapbook materials (including Rebekah and Lydia) that I didn’t get any pictures of that part of the shower. I believe that Kaleena took pictures of Dana opening her gifts. At that point, I was taking notes of who all the gifts were from.

Oh, and there are two funny “Rebekah” stories that came out of this shower. =)

Rebekah asked me MONTHS ago if she could go to Ms. Dana’s baby shower. She’s never been to a baby shower before and she wanted to go. I told her that I thought she was old enough now and that would be a good idea. She has been anticipating it for months. We were going to make it something special for Rebekah --- and Lydia was going to hang out with David for the afternoon (and probably Jamie and Dana’s boys). Well, David ended up having to work all day, so Lydia ended up coming to the shower with us.

David and I decided that since this was such a big deal to Rebekah being old enough to go to a shower that we should probably discuss this with her ahead of time. So, I sat down with Rebekah and explained the situation that Lydia would be coming with us to the baby shower and that I wanted her to be happy that Lydia was going to get to be in on all the fun.

And do you know what Rebekah said? “But Mommy, I’m just afraid that Lydia will be too rough with the baby!”

SHE THOUGHT THAT DANA WAS GOING TO HAVE THE BABY AT THE BABY SHOWER!

I had no idea that’s what was going on in her little head! David and I explained that Ms. Dana wasn’t going to have the baby for another two weeks and that a baby shower is just a chance for the mommy to get things so that she’ll be ready when the baby comes.

Rebekah said, “I thought that Ms. Dana was going to bring the baby to the shower and that the baby would be sleeping. But Lydia might be too rough with the baby because she doesn’t know that babies’ heads are VERY EXPENSIVE! Their bones aren’t all growed together yet!”

I SO had to stifle a laugh!

But Rebekah took it well and both she AND Lydia were SO good at the shower. I was SO proud of them both!

So, this was a bit of an unusual baby shower, because it was actually a scrapbook baby shower. Here’s part of Dana’s shower invitations. Dana and I were scrapbooking one night and Dana gave me some lavender paper and some pink paper and said she wouldn’t be using it (with three boys). I told her that she should hold on to it because she might be having a girl (this was before the sonogram). She said, “Well, if I have a girl, then I’ll just need all new scrapbook stuff!” I told her, “If you’re having a girl, I’m going to throw you a scrapbook baby shower!” Dana loved the idea and said, “You can get hand-me-down clothes, but you can’t get hand-me-down scrapbook stuff!”

So that’s what we did.

So, the morning of the shower, I told Rebekah that we would be making Ms. Dana a scrapbook page for the baby and that we were going to put Bible verses on it. I told her to be thinking about what verse she wanted to put on the page. (I was thinking that she would tell me in general and that I would look up a verse for her to use.) She said, and I quote:

“God loves all the babies in all different kinds of ways. John 3:25”

Again, I had to totally stifle a laugh. She made up a verse, complete with reference! So funny, this girl!

Okay, so this post is long enough.
Happy Thursday!

Isn't she just precious?

Just had to sneak in and take a picture of Lydia when I saw her like this. Just so precious. She always looks like such a little angel when she's sleeping. =)

Happy Father's Day

Just wanted to post these pictures from our Father's Day - David watching Peter Pan with the girls. So sweet!

A lesson learned

The other night, Rebekah told me this story about what happened at school one day...
Rebekah: We were on the playground and I was talking to Sierra. I told her that Cody was the meanest boy in my class!
And when I turned around, I saw that Cody was standing there---and he heard me---and he told Ms. Shell and I got in trouble!
Me: So what did you learn through this?
Rebekah: That I need to talk quieter!

Just a simple layout...

...but one I really like. Did this while I had the house to myself.

Thought I'd get a ton of scrapping done, but just got four layouts finished. Still in March 2006...

I'll catch up eventually.

The quote says:

A Girl is Innocence playing in the mud, Beauty standing on its head, and Motherhood dragging a doll by the foot.

Click on the layout to enlarge it.

Chattanooga Fountain

We recently took a trip to Chattanooga and the girls got to play in the fountain. The last time the girls were at the fountain, Rebekah had just turned two and Lydia was still in my tummy. =) Here's a scrapbook page I did of Rebekah in the fountain.