October 27, 2006

Red Ribbon Week



Today is the final day of Red Ribbon Week at school. The kids were encouraged to wear their halloween outfits to school today. Reagon looks like she is trying out for the next Austin Powers movie. Nanny gave her several ideas last night on how to look like a cool 70's girl.

Kendall, on the other hand, was supposed to be a witch. Everything was fine until we pulled into the school parking lot and she could see all the teenagers dressed up. I guess something scared her because she started crying and climbed back into the car and would not get out for anything. I tried everything to coax her out with no luck. Her dad was dropping off his stepdaughter and he came over to help. He ended up taking her home with him. She changed her clothes at his house, no witch outfit for her...she is now a basketball player, and after talking with her Mimi she went back to school. I still don't know what scared her so bad but she was shaking like a leaf. Thankfully, she went back to school. I would hate to think I sent a sack full of stuff for the halloween party and she wasn't going to get to enjoy it.

Update on the itching..........

Well, yesterday afternoon my doctor called me back and asked that I come in to be checked. He said my symptoms sounded like either an allergic reaction or cholestasis. Josh was rained out of work so thankfully he was able to go with me. After waiting forever to see the doctor and asking tons of questions, they are leaning more toward problems with my gallbladder. He said it was nothing to worry about, just something I will have to bare with until the baby is born. Most of the time, especially is cholestasis, the condition is resolved at delivery. He said I don't have the serious form of cholestasis or my eyes would be yellow and my face would be swollen. I go back to the dr on Tuesday for blood work just to be sure we are treating the right thing. Josh and I both felt better after leaving the dr office. He reassured us that the baby was fine and that I was fine. I am supposed to drink as much water as I possibly can throughout the day and take liquid benedryl four times a day.

Some online info I copied on Cholestasis................not for the weak stomach

Some women experience a very severe itching in late pregnancy. The most common cause of this is Cholestasis; a common liver disease that only happens in pregnancy. Cholestasis of pregnancy is a condition in which the normal flow of bile in the gallbladder is affected by the high amounts of pregnancy hormones. Cholestasis is more common in the last trimester of pregnancy when hormones are at their peak, but usually goes away within a few days after delivery. According to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Cholestasis occurs in about 1 out of 1,000 pregnancies. Pregnancy hormones affect gallbladder function, resulting in slowing or stopping of the flow of bile. The gallbladder holds bile that is produced in the liver, which is necessary in the breakdown of fats in digestion. When the bile flow is stopped or slowed down, this causes a build up of bile acids in the liver which can spill into the bloodstream.

I read some pretty scary stuff but Dr Henson assured me that I don't have to worry. He said every case is different and I don't have to worry about delivering early or harming the baby. All I have to do is deal with the intense itching for a few more weeks.

Thanks for all the prayers.

If anyone has extra wooden backscratchers lying around, mail them to me!!! LOL

October 26, 2006

MISERY MISERY MISERY!

I can't even begin to describe how miserable I was last night.

After revival, we went through the normal evening activities...getting girls ready for bed, teeth brushed, showers, clothes layed out....all the usual stuff. Then I layed down and told Josh that I wasn't feeling well. My stomach was hurting and I just felt yucky. I had felt great before, just a little hot. About 5 minutes later I get up to go to the bathroom and before I even make it in there I can feel my tounge swelling. Within 30 seconds my whole body (AND I MEAN EVERYWHERE) was itching like CRAZY!!!!! I can't even begin to describe the terrible itching. NO rash, No signs on my skin at all on the outside. It's almost like it is coming from within my body...if that makes any sense. My tounge was itching, inside my nose, my eyes, inside my ears, EVERYWHERE!!!! The worst pain of all comes from the itching in the palms of my hands. This is the 4th time in a year that I have experienced this. I ran for the liquid benedryl and then itched in misery for about 30 minutes. After the longest 30 minutes of my life the itching will begin to slowly go away. I finally went to sleep about 2 hours after the episoide but I can still feel tingling in my skin every now and then, even this morning. I also shake really bad...but not like a seizure..more like a chill when I am going through the worst of it. I think that may be my nerves. I have a call into my doctor and I'm very anxious to see what he thinks. The first two times this happened, about a year ago, I was not pregnant. The last two episodes, I have been pregnant. It's been about 3 months or so since I had an "attack". If anyone has experienced this before, please tell me about it. I've been "googling online" all morning to try and find a possible reason behind this. It almost sounds like something in my central nervous system...or a bad allergy to something.

I'll update when I hear from my dr.

October 25, 2006

Wednesday afternoon ramblings

Finally getting the chance to post something. The website has been down for a couple days and the post I entered yesterday was deleted by accident. My digital camera has been on the blink but thanks to a fresh new battery, I think I'm back in business. Wish I had the camera in working order yesterday. It is Red Ribbon Week at school and the girls were supposed to dress as their favorite rock star or movie star. Reagon was Hillary Duff and Kendall was Carrie Underwood. They looked so cute!

Josh's band played at the Mt Ida fairgrounds last Saturday night. They did an awesome job as usual. Flight 40:31 played after Josh and then the two bands played the last song together. They sound great together. The girls had a good time. Megan and Alexa spent the night with Reagon...they had fun in the jumping house, riding the train and getting their face painted. I don't know how much money Papa Roger spent at the concession stand but everytime I turne around Kendall was asking for a hot dog or drink or glow bracelet or something. I'm sure he went home with empty pockets. I'm pretty sure Memaw Teresa made a trip or two herself with Kendall. She really racked up that night!

Saturday our church at Aly gave us a baby shower. We received so many nice things! I'll try to get a picture of some of the beautiful blankets and outfits. Josh was especially excited about the little razorback outfits.

Reagon is still doing good at ball practice. She loves it and practices every day after school. With basketball and piano lessons, she is one busy girl. I am so proud of her. She is doing great in school and is in GT this year. She loves it. She is still in love with reading. I'm sure she gets this from Nanny. You just have to make her go to bed at night. She will sit up as long as she can wrapped up in a book. She has 3 or 4 books next to her bedside with bookmarks and she will finish them and move on to more books from her collection from Nanny. She reads to Kendall almost every night. Hopefully, Kendall will also have a love for reading.

Before I close, I would like to ask all my blog readers to pray for Kendall. She is having some kidney problems. This is part of her Coloboma so it is something we were expecting, just hoping to skip. Thankfully, she hasn't had problems up until now. The last couple of weeks she has had a very hard time "holding it" and had several accidents. It doesn't matter how much we get her up at night or limit her drinks, she will wet the bed (usually more than once). I get up at least 3 times a night to check on her and change the sheets and clean her up. She has been out of pullups at night for 2 years and usually only had one accident at night every 3 or 4 months when she was really tired or sick. Her teacher called me yesterday and she had two accidents before lunch. I called her doctor and they can't get her in until Dec 19th unless someone cancels an appt. Please pray for her. Last night was a better night..she only had one accident and did ok at school today.

Hope everyone is having a good week!

October 19, 2006

From this weeks newspaper

Mount Gilead to Hold Youth Explosion

Mount Gilead Baptist Youth and Josh Harper Ministries present Youth Explosion 2006 at the Mt Ida Fairgrounds on Saturday, Oct 21st. Gates open at 6pm and concert starts at 6:30pm. Tickets are $5. All proceeds to benefit "Operation Backpack".



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This should be a great night of music and worship. Come out if you can! Flight 40:31 will also be playing after Josh.

October 17, 2006

8 month update....33weeks

8th month= 31.5-36 wks
9th month= 36-40 wks

I can hardly believe I am 8 months pregnant! This has been such a great pregnancy! Yesterday I had a doctor appt and Josh was able to go with me. He was rained out of work at 7:40am just as I was dropping the girls off to school. We met at Kirby and had such a wonderful day together. Everything was normal at the dr appt...as the doctor said..it's pretty boring appts for a while. All they do is weigh me, check my blood pressure and measure my stomach. I am very happy with the weight gain so far. I am right on track to gain a total of 25 pounds which was my goal. I gained 25 with Reagon and it was so much easier to lose than the 45 I gained with Kendall. My blood pressure is fine..low as usual. My stomach is only measuring one week larger than my due date now. It has been measuring 2 weeks larger for several weeks so my doctor thinks Jed is finally slowing down in time for my due date. He had talked about inducing a couple weeks early if he kept up the fast growing pace...we'll see what he looks like around 37 weeks or so. The next appt will be my last 'every two weeks' appt. Then it's every week until delivery.

I had to laugh at Josh..we were talking about dates in case my doctor gave me an option for inducing. We had decided on Nov 24th since that is my Nana's bday. Well, Josh came home to tell me that we HAD to change the date. There is NO WAY we can induce on that day. Yes, you guessed it....a razorback game!!! HA HA I really don't think I will have to worry about it. As much as I would like to speed this along, I think it is best for me and Jed to wait until he is ready to be born...as long as I don't go past 40 weeks. Then the misery will set in for sure!

The nursery (Jed and Kendall will share a room) is 90% finished. I have worked hard the last few days washing all the baby clothes and getting everything ready and organized. Our first baby shower is Sunday at our church in Aly. We are all excited and can't wait to see all the little baby things for Jed.

Keep us in your prayers...we are only a few weeks away! And pray for Josh and the girls......this nesting (on top of my usual OCD) may just send them over the edge!!

Basketball Season


Reagon had her very first basketball practice last week. She is so excited about playing this year. They should have a good team of 4th grade girls. Every night Josh will go outside and work with her. I stopped telling her to not dribble the ball in the house...it was a losing fight. I guess the more she handles the ball, the better she will be with it on the court. She tried to call Uncle Jerry after her practice to tell him all about it...think he was gone to a cross country meet. She loves going to the gym with him to work on drills. Reagon has a great coach this year...Richard Ray. He does such a good job with the girls. I can't wait for the first game! I'll post the schedule when I get it.....the games should begin the first week of Dec...just in time for baby Jed!!

Reagon is in the white shirt with blue shorts and holding the ball over her head

October 11, 2006

More pictures from Sunday....







I couldn't decide which pictures to delete, so I'm posting them all!!!

Derrik's birthday party








Aunt Lonetta invited us to her home on Sunday after church to celebrate Derrik's birthday. We had such a nice afternoon and really enjoyed our visit with everyone. Lonetta and the girls prepared a huge feast of mexican food and we ate till we were stuffed! The food was delicious! It was so cute seeing all the little kids playing together. Kendall and Aubri played outside most of the time, even making dirt angels....kind of like snow angels, just a little messier! Reagon had fun inside holding Maylee and playing with Ava and Hayden. Christmas will be so much fun this year with all the little ones.

A Huge Success


Thanks to everyone who came out to support Josh and his band this past Saturday night. They did a wonderful job, as usual! The benefit ended up raising close to $8,000 for Brittney's memorial scholarship fund.

October 6, 2006

Third Day Concert





Josh and I had a great time last night at the Third Day concert at Alltel arena. We met Kris and Bree at Hot Springs for supper and then we were all on our way! We had great seats not far at all from the stage. Third Day is both mine and Josh's favorite band (not including the Josh Harper band) and they put on a great show. Mac Powell (the lead singer) is incredible. ((((I'm a sucker for a man in a goatee who can sing!)))) The David Crowder band opened for them and they did a good job too. I'm not a big fan but Josh really enjoyed their music. We finally made it home at 1am last night and after ironing work clothes, feeding the dogs, watering plants, making lunches for today & taking a shower we finally crashed in bed around 2am. We were both back in Glenwood at 6:45am this morning so we are running off of very little sleep today! It was a great night and Josh & I both enjoyed the concert. We look forward to seeing them again......hopefully with a different band opening for them.....The Josh Harper band, maybe??

October 3, 2006

Growing up too fast




On Saturday night Reagon spent the night with Megan. It was Megan's 10th birthday party/sleepover and Sabrina emailed the pics to me this morning. They are growing up way too fast!

Friday night Josh and I ate at the Pizza Shack and then watched a movie at home. I was probably asleep within 15 minutes of the start of the movie. I can't even remember the name of the movie...all I remember is the movie is about a basketball team, something like Glory Road??? I'll have to ask Josh if it was a good movie or not!! LOL

Saturday Josh had an exciting morning. Bill Clinton played golf at the Glenwood CC and Josh & another worker followed the cart with the secret service to "help out".
Although not a big Clinton fan, he said it was a really neat experience.

Saturday night Kendall and I went with Josh to his band practice. They are gearing up to play Sat night at the Pike Co fairgrounds. I think the concert will begin at 6:30pm. Hope everyone can come out to support them and help to raise money for the Brittany Fagan scholarship fund.