So sad

Joshua Morgan Hancock 1978-2007. My prayers are with Josh's family and with the St. Louis Cardinals. What sad news to hear yesterday. Only 29 years old, it is so hard to understand. God bless all those in mourning.

WELCOME TO THE FAMILY!!!

YES!!! I have the most exciting news: Thaddeus and Jackie were engaged on Friday night! YEAH! So let me say to Jackie, welcome to our family--you are a wonderful addition and I could not be more excited about having you as a sister! We love you so much. Congrats to you both, I am more than happy for you!! :) :) :)

Josie Photos!!

I know, I know---you all have been waiting for more Josie pictures. I am sorry that I haven't posted in awhile. Here's the quick update. Josie is doing awesome! She is still an angel baby. We had a weight check on Monday (April 23rd) and she was 8 lbs 11 oz. And the big news, last night she slept for 5 hours straight! What a girl! Here are some fun photos from the past few weeks:
Her first bath

Remembering

Today was the 12th anniversary of bombing of the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. As many of you know, I was living here in high school during that terrible time. I will never be able to forget the overwhelming emotions, I can still recall the pain in my chest while watching all the events unfold. To the 168 people that lost their lives and to their families that continue to miss them everyday--may God bless you and keep you. May the time that passes continue to heal your hearts.
The Survivor Tree is my favorite part of the Oklahoma City National Memorial. This tree was there in 1995 during the attack and it survived. Now it stands as a glorious reminder that with God's help we can overcome even the most terrible of situations, we can continue to grow and provide beauty in a world that can be so ugly.
Please take a minute to remember those that lost their lives, their families, the volunteer rescue workers, and pray for them.

Easter Catch-Up

Sorry long time no blog! Things have been crazy wonderful here with not much down time. Thaddeus and Jackie came for a whole week (they left this morning :( We had a blast. Stayed up way too late at night playing all sorts of games. Thanks Jackie for my new game, Cranium Pop 5--I LOVE it! I figure I will try and recreate this week on the blog, starting with Easter.

On Saturday we colored eggs, this is Jackie's favorite thing to do, she and the boys had the best time.

I think they are singing but I can't be sure: :)My boys on Easter morning:And here is my baby girl sleeping away her first Easter:

And can you believe the Easter bunny found Jackie all the way from California?!Easter breakfast, yummy yummy eggs:

So much more to come, we have LOTS of photos from this week :)

Happy Easter!!!

Hello all. I just wanted to take a sec and wish you all a very Happy Easter. We have had a wonderful wonderful day!! (capped off by a big win for the Cards over the astros :)

The boys had a great time searching for their eggs and baskets this morning. We had lots of laughs. A very generous Easter bunny visited us last night and the boys were thrilled with all the presents and chocolate! Yum.

I promise that 1. I took pictures of the boys this morning and 2. I will post them on this blog at some point but for right now I just wanted to put a few more pictures of Josie. She is such an angel baby and things could not be going better! She is sweet and is sleeping and nursing so well. I am SO thankful, right now things are smooth sailing and I am praying that it stays that way. We go to the doc again tomorrow, Josie was a little jaundice (just like all 3 of her big bros) and we will also get a weight check. She lost almost a whole pound already and was down to 7 lbs 3 oz on Friday morning. (no one is concerned about that--just thought I would let you know).

Both Grandmas and Uncle Thad and Jackie are loving being with our kiddos. Josie has taken over everyone already, we fight on who gets to hold her! The boys are loving the attention and rough-housing that is practically ongoing now. What a blessing our babies are!

Here's my girl on Saturday wide awake and looking so pretty:

Here is Josie snuggling with Daddy on Easter. Aunt Deb she is wearing the little jogging suit you bought for her, TOO cute!!!

Introducing Josie Claire

On Wednesday April 4th, 2007, at 11:39 AM, weighing 8 lbs 1 oz, measuring 21 1/4 in, Ms. Josie Claire was born!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She is gorgeous, she is perfect. Thank you God for another glorious addition to our family.
Here is the quick, quick version. I woke up Wednesday morning at 7 am just not feeling right, I had a crampy type feeling, told Michael before he left for work that I thought something might be going on. By 8 am I was calling a friend of mine to come and watch the boys and calling Michael at work to come home to take me into the hospital. I frantically packed the bag and called various relatives. Michael and I made it to the hospital right at 9 am, I was definitely in labor. By 9:45 I had an epidural that mostly worked. I still had some pretty substantial pain but the medicine did help. My doctor arrived about 15 minutes after I was ready to push, those were a tough 6 or 8 contractions I will tell you!!! She was in the room with us for less then 10 minutes total! Josie came out on the 3rd and 4th push. It was amazing! What a blessing she is! We are both doing quite well, so well in fact that the hospital discharged us today a mere 27 hours after her birth! (yes, seriously--I have mixed feelings on this subject which I might go into on a later date) But for now Josie and I are home and taking it easy! (Michael's Mom was always supposed to drive up on Wednesday and did so, she arrived at the hospital about 8 pm to see her second granddaughter. My Mom, Jackie, and Thaddeus will still arrive on Saturday but not to a hospital visit but to an angel at home! We are so excited.) Here are some pictures for you all!!!!!

VERY cool

I splurged. I finally did it. After years of coveting, I went for it. What did I do? I bought a Dyson Vacuum!!!! You know the bright yellow ones that won't ever lose suction and are so expensive you think "a person has to be crazy to pay that much for a vacuum!!!" Well call me crazy and call me happy! OHMIGOODNESS I LOVE this machine!!!!!!!! I can't even tell you. First of all I am NOT a cleaning person, in fact I hate it. It puts me in a bad mood, I get crazy grumpy. But I love this vacuum. It pushes so easily and it gets up everything! (in fact if you go to their website it shows you all the dust mites and little creepy crawly buggy things that live in your carpet that this vacuum will suck up---really disgusting!)

I decided to take pictures for you:

Now this one is after just vacuuming my living room, yeah ONE room.

I filled up the entire canister with the whole house. And cleaning it was SO easy, lift off the canister, pull a trigger and all the junk dumps right out the bottom into the garbage. AWESOME. (now I admitted before that I hate cleaning but I do vacuum and I still got up all this nastiness with my Dyson)

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On the baby front: things are going fine, I am still feeling good with my bad back and swollen feet. I am just a week away from induction if Josie doesn't decide to come by herself. My Mom-in-law will be here TOMORROW (thank goodness for that! What a load off my mind!!!) and then Mom, Thad, and Jackie show up on Saturday! I think Josie is waiting for them, wouldn't that be awesome :) I have another OB appointment on Thursday and I will let you know what happens.

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T-ball is going great. The boys LOVE it. They are having the best time. Remember to check their team website for fun pictures, like Kaden-man sitting down in the outfield, too precious and all their stats are there too! They have another game on Thursday night which Grandma will get to go to. :)

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I will put up more pictures of everyone soon.

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Let's go Cardinals as we take on the Mets for game 2. Let's bring home a winner. I am SO happy that baseball started again! I love my Extra Innings from DirecTV :) Cardinals and A's baseball all the time, it's awesome!

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And what's up with this---NOT a single comment about Michael's cool South American photos? Come on, the spider alone is worth writing something!!! Anyone out there reading our blog? (just kidding, but we do like comments, hint, hint.)

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Oh yes, hello Karri and David. (best friends from high school) Got your e-mail today and know that you are checking in with the blog! Great to hear from you! Kiss the baby for me :) :) :)