I am so excited to wake up to these crisp mornings. I'm not looking forward to the cold ones, but crisp is nice. Samantha is finally playing outside again. I've convinced her all of the bees, wasps and hornets are gone. She quit playing in the back yard about two months ago when she was stung. She even boycotted the pool for the last month of swimming. I can't believe how long it's been since I've posted, but life has been busy. With the addition of two more sets of homework each night, it feels like we barely have time to think. Amelia is being pretty needy at the moment too. She thinks she needs to be held all the time. Thank you Mema Shirley for this gift. I love my little pumpkin. When we walk in the door, she completely loses her mind for a few minutes. She will smile and then burst into tears until we take her from whoever is holding her. Last night she went through it with me coming in the door and then did it all over again when Peyton walked in. She loves her Daddy so much. I felt a little sorry for him last Sunday. He had worked for two weeks straight and on his first day off, she would not let him walk through the room without crying to be held and crawling around after him. She does get around the house really well. We've installed the gate at the top of the stairs. Aunt Rosie has rearranged the furniture twice this month in an effort to find the best way to block her in the living room so it's easier for my grandmother to not have to chase her. It's working out for me because she cleans everything when she moves furniture so the house looks great. Who cares where the couch is when it's clean? Updates by topic:
Amelia: Pulling up and walking along the furniture. Follows us all around the house crawling. Sings and goos all the time now. Smiles bigger than any baby I've ever seen. Giggles when she's tickled or when you kiss her neck. Rode in the buggy at the grocery store for the first time. Eats like a little piggy. She will eat anything on my plate as long as I make it small enough for her. She had cream of chicken soup and a turkey sandwich with me last night. She is a delight and we are so lucky to have our little girl. We plan to clean out the playground this weekend to have it ready to go next week since the weather has cooled off. Her two bottom, front teeth are completely in now. She bit my knee the other day and I thought I would jump off of the bed. I had no idea how much it could hurt. Little stinker.
Samantha: Doing well in school. Still doesn't really like to wake up in the mornings, but loves to visit her friends at school. She has more guy friends than girl friends...does this surprise anyone? She tells me every night how Luc and Roman are doing in school. I haven't met these boys, but I think they must be the highlight of her days. Sam went to her first book fair this week. She bought a book about cats and a book about bats. No kidding...this one really will be a vet. She is blowing me away with her reading skills already. She can actually pronounce out several words. And once she learns to write a word, she writes it over and over again.
Sabrina: Tells me daily how much she loves school. Wants to go to school on Saturdays too. Has lots of little girl friends...of which Carley is her favorite. She loves her teacher, Ms. McClanahan. She bought two books at her first book fair. Two biographies: Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber Beanie also reads really well already. She loves to do flash cards with site words. I taught her to spell the word LOOK by making the O's look like eyes. She still uses this word in her sentences because it's her favorite and I guess it's really the first word she learned to spell.
Destiny: Brought home all A's and B's on her first progress report. She really seems to be in tune this year with school. She has a project to do for science this weekend and she already has her research ready. I'm very proud of Destiny.
Michael: Status qou in school. Explained to me that it's okay to have F's on your progress report because it's JUST a progress report. Gave him Webster's definition of PROGRESS. I keep wondering when he is going to ask to take the driving test to get his license. It seems like none of his friends are interested in driving...saving us all on car insurance I guess. He picked up a soccer ball a couple of months ago. I'm pleased that he's showing some interest in something besides the computer and basketball. I can only hope his grades are good enough to try out in the spring.
Sad News
Jordan: Guess this qualifies for sad and good. Jordan's leg was amputated on September 10th. By Septemeber 25th she was walking on her new leg and looking great. She felt so much better the morning after surgery. I felt like I was seeing a miracle unfold right before my eyes. She had chemo again last week, but did not have to go through a blood transfusion...which was great news. I haven't been able to see her since we've all had colds for the past week. She just looks beautiful and she feels so much better than she did last month. The "autopsy"/pathology report on her leg came back earlier this week and 97% of the cancer cells within the tumor were dead. This is wonderful news. It means the chemo was working in spite of the continued growth.
Uncle Terry: We lost Uncle Terry to ALS on September 9, 2010. I have many fond memories of times at Terry and Sherry's house when I was growing up. My Aunt Sherry spent 39 years with him and she is in so such deep mourning. I know that her girls are surrounding her with love and her faith is so strong that she will be fine, but for now, she is heartbroken. Uncle Terry was surrounding by family when he finally slipped away. My mom discribed the scene to me. She watched my aunt and my cousins sing his favorite hymn to him. His angels on earth singing to him as his angels in Heaven welcomed him home.
Uncle Lamar: Uncle Lamar has been in Atlanta Medical Center for two weeks. He had an accident in his rig and nearly lost his life. He has a broken back. He's had surgery. He can move his right foot and leg, but it remains to be seen if/when he will regain full mobility. We are so hopeful that he will recover completely. They took him off of the ventalitor yesterday and he is finally in a room instead of ICU. My dad is so relieved to hear him talk. This accident came so close to losing Terry. We were all still unravelled and not at all prepared for another medical emergency. Destiny is closer to Lamar than any of my kids. She has been camping with him and Aunt Judy and she has been very concerned. I am going to take her to the hospital to visit him this weekend.
Aunt El: This one is almost too much for me. Aunt El had open heart surgery Wednesday of this week. She was doing well right after, but her heart stopped yesterday. They were able to install an external pacemaker and they are taking her back into surgery this morning to put in the pacemaker permanently. I am so grateful that she is still with us today, but it is very hard for me to not be there. When she has had surgery in the past, I've been able to drive up to North Carolina to be with her. This hasn't been possible with the kids. If I wasn't sick today, I would drive up now. I don't even think they would let me see her.
MacAlester Kenzie
Our beautiful little one eyed calico cat died last week. I can't tell you how heartbroken I am over losing Mac. She was a wonderul cat. Peyton and I got her in 2000 right after Lingo died. Mac hasn't been the same since we lost Vegas last year. They were so close. I will never forget bringing Mac home and having her sleep with us every night. She had a tiny little white spot on her right eye that grew over the first ten weeks that we had her. Eventually her entire eye was white. The vet said she had very little vision out of the eye, but she could still see motion and it wasn't hurting her, so we opted not to have it removed. The surgery would have been painful. After Vegas moved in, I never had to doctor the eye again. He kept it clean for her. When Destiny and Michael moved in, Mac began sleeping on Michael's bed every night and Vegas slept with Destiny. I found Mac on my way to work. I turned the car around and called Peyton to let him know I was coming home so we could bury our little Mac Attack. We miss you girl!
Dingo
Dingo is still with us, but he's really getting old. Peyton says we almost lost him a couple of months ago from an infection, but we treated him with antibotics and he bounced back. He spent a couple of nights in doggy jail for the first time since he was adopted from the pound in 1998. He disappeared last weekend. Peyton put up signs and a neighbor called to tell us that she had called the pound on him when he showed up in her garage. She could tell he was elderly and she was afraid he would get hit by a car. He played with her kids until they picked him up. I went down to pick him up on Wednesday. We were so grateful to have him back. I don't think he'll be with us much longer, but he should spend his last months with his family. We had a heart to heart on the way home. I told him how sorry I was that I moved into his life and brought all of these kids with me. With each kid he got a little less attention. I think he understands. He put his head in my shoulder and let me pet him on the way home. He got to stick his head out in the wind and for a minute he was in heaven.
This morning I had time to update the blog because I am in bed with bronchitus. I haven't been this sick with a cold in years. It's been like this since last Thurdsay, getting worse every day. I made up my mind yesterday that I was never going to make it to work today. I'm going to rest this morning and then go buy baby diapers, bigger bottles, Mary's birthday present, and new much bigger sleepers for my baby at Babies R Us tonight. Peyton sounds worst than I do. He's really cute when he has a cold. When we love someone, they are even cuter when they sound like a frog!!!
All in all, I have so much to be thankful for. Next weekend, my husband will celebrate his 45th birthday. I can't wait to have his adults only party. Sending the kids to the Grandmothers' houses.
I can hardly believe that my baby is already nine months old. She had her first black eye last month. She tries to move from one piece of furniture to the other without hands. It's very funny to watch her. She just doesn't realize that she's a baby. She thinks she's all grown up and that she can walk. I actually think she might start to walk in the next month or so. She isn't afraid to try. Peyton had to put foam on all of our tables in the living room. We are doing everything we can to make it safe for her. I've really been trying to put her down in her own bed. It's tough because I can't really let her cry it out during the week since she shares a room with Sabrina and Samantha. They have to get up early, so we keep her in our room, but at least we can put her in the co sleeper. It's hard to put her in her bed when I haven't seen her all day. I hate it that I have already missed so much of her life. It's tough to be a working mom. I bought a lottery ticket tonight for tomorrow's drawing. Amanda sent some clothes over for Ameila this week and Jennifer gave us some of Mary clothes. I almost cried when I pulled the little red velvet Christmas dress from the bag. I will never forget the day I bought the dress for the twins. I kept one and gave the other to Jessica. She passed it on to Averi and now it's back home. I took out the pictures from the girls' first Christmas. These were really our first family photos. My babies are so big now. Amelia can wear the dress right now, but just barely. I want to take a couple of pictures in it if it will still fit. She will be ten months old at Christmas. The girls were only five months old. The dress is a 3 to 6 month dress. No new teeth this week, but she is definately teething again. 
