Update on Baby Holden

Baby Holden is making great progress. I spoke to his Mommy tonight and they are hoping to be able to take him home over the weekend or early next week. Since he was early, what he is going through is pretty common and they have him in the NICU for monitoring and precautionary reasons. When he was born and his breathing was so rapid, that is what caused the tear in his little itty bitty lung. It appears to be getting better which is great. He did have a slight infection and was on antibiotics which they have since taken him off. His Mom and Dad have been able to feed him during some of his feedings and change diapers, etc. His Mom got released today and sounded really good when I spoke to her on the phone. She said the nurses in the NICU have been awesome and are sooooo good with the babies. Of course it is hard to leave your baby when you get released but she feels better knowing the care he is getting.
I can not wait to meet this little guy! And I am soooo soooo glad he is getting better!

Please Pray For This Little Guy!

This little guy is one of my Best Friends newborn baby boy...Holden! He was born Saturday night to proud parents Chaley and Ryan. Holden was not due until January 19th, however, his Mommy was going to be induced on January 12th if she had not had him by then. Chaley had some blood pressure issues later in her pregnancy that have been kind of scary. She had been put on partial bed rest and just last week complete bed rest. Holden was 7 lbs 1 oz 19 inches long when he was born. He was having some breathing problems and has been in the NICU ever since. Chaley did not get to see her new baby boy until the following day. I can't imagine what she was going through and what they continue to go through. They found a small tear in Holden's lung and hope that it will heal on its own. I ask that you pray for this little guy and his family. I am dying to go see him and his Mommy but neither can have any visitors. Holden has an older sister Brianna and an older brother Brody. Brody is my Godson!

I spoke to Chaley tonight via text and she said that they had him on antibiotics for a slight infection and that they have taken him off of that because they believe the infection is gone. So that is great news! Chaley is still in the hospital as well due to her blood pressure, they are hoping it goes down soon.
I hope Mom and Baby Holden get to go home soon safely and that I can plant a big ol kiss on those chubby cheeks!
Thank you for your prayers!

Merry Christmas!

We had a great Christmas! We got so many nice things! It started on Christmas Eve when my Mom and Steve and Chloe came over and we celebrated our Christmas together. My Mom and Steve made a lasagna and brought it over and we had salad and Texas toast. They also brought over some stuffed mushrooms as an appetizer that were really good.

This was Lucie standing on her perch when I told her Chloe was coming over. She was watching the front door waiting for Chloe.

Here is my little sister Chloe in her Christmas sweater. She is quite the little diva with lots of clothes and toys!

Here is her Christmas sweater, it lights up! Too funny!

I tried to get all the dogs together to get a picture of them all and the stubborn old lady was the only one that was willing to pose. She isn't dumb, she knew I had a treat in my hand!

I put the dog's stockings on the floor and let them have had it. They did need some help and when I was done getting their presents out of their stockings they were looking for more....can you say spoiled!

And Lucie finally had had enough! She was pooped! All this Christmas stuff wore her out, she covered herself up with the blanket. If Lucie gets wore out, you know they played hard....she has LOTS of energy!
Jeremy and I were so excited to wake up in our new house on Christmas morning. Jeremy made us this fabulous Monkey Bread! It was soooo good! We exchanged our gifts/stockings. We had originally said we were not going to get each other anything but we broke the rules. Jeremy got me a Keurig one cup coffee maker, it is red! I love it! I am not drinking coffee but I do use it for the hot chocolate. I am sure I will use it for coffee once Baby Darnell comes. He also got me a foot massager and a Vera Bradley laptop bag. My stocking had some fun things in it too such as Bath & Body Works foot lotion, shea butter lotion, and antibacterial hand lotion, gum, wet wipes. I got Jeremy his year membership to the golf course in our back yard. I also got him some fun things for his stocking as well.

After breakfast and gifts, we loaded up the Tahoe and headed to Pekin to spend Christmas with Jeremy's family.

This is Lucie helping her Daddy drive to Pekin. She did not sit down the whole way. Both dogs were excited!

Here they are....they pretty much rode like this the whole way!

We had a great time in Pekin too! We ate too much food and got a lot of nice things. We were excited to spend the night with Hank & Maggie. Since they are flying out to London for 3 years on the 1st, our time with them is limited.

Hankster sitting on Uncle Jeremy's lap playing his favorite gift...Leap Frog game.

The kids got Zhu Zhu pets for Christmas and Dee was not so sure about them!

I think she was getting annoyed with them:) They were interrupting her afternoon nap!
Baby Darnell got a lot of presents as well. Baby is not even here yet, I can only imagine with next year will be like.

Here is what Baby Darnell got for Christmas. Lots of cute things.

When we left Pekin yesterday, it was a winter wonderland. Well this is what we woke up to in Gibson City this morning. It is very beautiful out and has been snowing all day. I am guessing we already got 4 inches of snow. Jeremy was excited because he got a snowblower from my Mom's boyfriend and he got to use it this morning. He ended up doing our driveway and 2 of the neighbors. We have been pretty lazy all day and it has been great. We have dinner plans with some friends in town tonight. And since both of us are on winter break, we don't have anything to rush around for! Kinda nice!

And some other news, one of my best friends, Chaley and her husband Ryan welcomed their son into the world last night, December 26th at 11:25 p.m. Holden Hamilton Hausle was born weighing 7 lbs 1 oz. 19 inches long. Holden was not due until January 19th. If Chaley had not had him by January 12th they were going to induce her. She had been having some blood pressure issues and ended up having him early. I am very anxious to go see the baby and see my friend. I am sure I will have pictures to post at some point this week.

Baby D....13 weeks!

Today was the most awesome day ever! We got to see our baby moving around on the ultrasound! Let's just say Baby Darnell is quite the showoff (like it's Daddy, I must add). Here are a few pics, now mind you, the pics are pics I took of our ultrasound pictures. We do not have a scanner on our printer at home and I was not about to go back to work and scan them. So I think you can see pretty clearly what the pictures look like.
Baby Darnell is measuring 13 weeks 6 days, heartbeat was 147 bpm, and as soon as she put the ultrasound on my stomach, it waved to us!!! It was moving all over the place, stretched its legs and arms out, was sucking its thumb and at one point turned its back to us and shined us the moon! I did not want her to quit with the ultrasound because I wanted to sit there and watch it all day long. The Sonographer thinks she knows what it is, and since we want to know, she did tell us, however, we will not be confirming that until Jan, nor buying anything pink or blue just yet! Right Cathy and Jan! Baby Darnell's Grandma's are getting a little anxious! Today they were looking for anything that may appear abnormal and everything looked just fine. I did have bloodwork done as well, and will get those results back next week.

Side view, the legs are kinda hiding a little bit!

Another side view, at this moment it must have had its arms down but the majority of the time they were all over the place!

Close up side view

And here it is sucking its thumb or with its hand to its mouth! Quite the show off!

I do not currently have a new bump picture. I have not grown a lot and somedays my stomach is more bloated than others so I don't feel like I can get an accurate picture at the current time. I am hoping soon!
Jeremy and I are both very excited and can't wait to confirm the sex of our sweet little baby!
For the most part I am feeling pretty good. Although this morning I did not feel so hot when I woke up, so not sure what the deal was with that, but I did feel better as the day went on. My nausea still comes and goes a little bit and certain smells still bother me. I currently cannot stand the thought of eggs and some meats and the smell of coffee. Brushing my teeth is a struggle and since I am the type to brush my teeth 6 times a day, I get the job done with a number of gags in there:)
Right now, I am relaxing with my feet up on the couch since now I am officially on Christmas break! Oh it feels so great!

Staff Party!

We hosted Jeremy's staff last night at our house for their Holiday Party. It was alot of fun planning but also very tiring. I worked all week getting things ready and Jeremy helped me out a ton! Pretty much all the staff came but maybe 4 teachers who were already heading out of town for the holidays. So we had a great turnout. We had the party from 4-6:30 and I was afraid we would not have enough food. Well we have a ton of food leftover. Which is perfectly fine because I have some of my family coming over tomorrow to celebrate Christmas.
Jan, this post is for you since you wanted to see pictures! The staff was all very appreciative of us welcoming them into our home and hosting the party. We think everyone had a great time!

The dessert table. We had cookies, cheesecake bites, candy that I made, trailmix, M&M's, Rolo's and candy canes.


Part of the drink station, we put bottled water in our sink on ice. It worked out great!

Some of the appetizers. We had shrimp cocktail, sandwich pinwheels, cream cheese and pepper jelly, crackers, cheese and deer & beef sausage, and veggies, oh and a cheeseball!

Here we had fruit and dip, lil smokies in the crock pot and chips to go with the taco dip you will see below!

Taco dip on stove

I had to take a pic of these cute little plates. I got them at Covered Bridge Festival this year for $1 a pack. I thought they were so cute for the party!

And we didn't have anything fancy for the beer but a cooler:) We did move the koozie cups to a glass bowl rather than keep them in the plastic bag:) We need to find something a little bit fancier if we are gonna host social gatherings as such!

And even though the party was for Jeremy's staff, we received a ton of gifts from the staff members. We got two boxes of chocolate from the chocolate store in town, a Tastefully simple gift pack, a Baby Gap gift card, a cute little dish with popcorn in it, 4 bottles of wine, a cute snowman welcome sign and some cute ornaments.
Below, I had to post the cutest thing Jeremy got from a student at school. She made him a card and I thought it was so funny!

By the end of the night, our dogs were pooped! Lucie greeted everyone who came in the door by shaking her little bootie! And I think she even got some licks off of a few plates!

We have a party to attend with some of our Urbana friends tonight. We are looking forward to seeing everyone as we have not seen many of them in quite a while.

Tomorrow we have family coming over to celebrate Christmas. Looking forward to it!

Crazy Week!

This week has been super busy for us! We are having Jeremy's staff over this evening for their Holiday Party so I have been preparing food, preparing the house and just trying to get some rest in the mean time. Although there hasn't been much rest other than sleep at night this week. It was a busy week for me here at work as well with a lot of proposal deadlines.
We are having appetizers, beer, wine and soda for the staff members tonight. Sunday we are having Christmas with my Dad, my Step-Mom and Step-Sisters, my Step-Mom's parents and her brother. They are all coming to our house as well.
Thankfully, next week, I leave work at 1:30 on Wednesday for a Dr. appointment and do not return again until Jan 4th. I am in need of a much needed break!!! I am jealous of my husband, his last day is today.
I am looking forward to Wednesday as we will get to see Baby Darnell on an ultrasound again. I want to see how the baby is progressing and hear the heartbeat again!!! It makes me feel so good hearing that each time.
I have begun to start feeling better. I am still not 100%, but I have more of an appetite and have not been feeling as nauseous. I have never experienced heartburn before but I think I have been getting it. I don't know though since I don't know what it is like. Our appointment on Wednesday is to also look for any signs of Down Syndrome, etc. So please pray that everything comes out ok at our appointment and Baby Darnell is healthy and moving around!
Last weekend and early this week I was able to make some Christmas Candy. I made white chocolate dipped pretzel rods with holiday sprinkles, pretzel turtles, peppermint bark (in both white chocolate and regular chocolate) as well as Buckeyes (chocolate dipped peanut butter balls).
That is it for now. I am out of the office at noon today to go home and get ready for the party. I am sure I will have more to blog about come Sunday with the beginning of our holiday festivities getting underway this weekend.
Have a great weekend!

Christmas Gifts Part II

Let me start by saying I am sooooo glad it is Friday! I had a crazy day at work. Did not even get to take a lunch break. Needless to say I was exhausted when I got home. I was able to eat some lunch real fast at my desk, but it is always nice to take a break. I got home and Jeremy had ordered us pizza, I put on my fat girl pants and have been lounging on the couch all night with my dogs. Can't wait to sleep in tomorrow. I hope to get my Christmas shopping done, presents wrapped and Christmas candy made this weekend. Next week begins our crazy, hectic schedules of the holiday hustle & bustle.
My previous post showed a few gifts I had made for Jeremy's staff. I finally finished the secretaries gifts last night and Jeremy delivered all of them today. He said they were a huge hit and they all were just raving over them! Good to know since we do not know the people too well, I had no clue what to get them.
Here is a pic of the start of the secretaries baskets.

Jeremy's two secretaries had the round shaped boxes and they had a red blanket, a mug with hot chocolate and stir sticks, a cute brownie mix in an oven mit, an ornament, some comfy socks, some Bath & Body Works hand soap and Scentsy room spray.
Another lady that works at the school that helps Jeremy a lot on things...her box is the rectangle box and hers had all the same things but rather than the blanket, I put some popcorn and soda's in her box.


And here is the finished product. They all turned out really good. However, that cellophane can kind of be a bear to work with!
Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Christmas Gifts

***Second post of night, be sure to scroll down to see previous post***
So this being Jeremy's first year as a Principal, we have found out that the old Principal bought a few people at the school some gifts for Christmas. Those people include the janitors, the cooks and the secretaries. Not knowing the people very well, I had a hard time coming up with something to get them that wasn't too much money. We are having the entire staff over on the 18th for a Holiday Party!
So this is what I came up with....please note, this is just for the 4 cooks and the 2 female janitors. The secretaries I have not put their gift together yet so once I do I will take a pic. There is a male janitor that is just getting a camo coat from Jeremy that he picked out the day after Thanksgiving on a Black Friday sale!
For the cooks I decided to put together these cute plates with crackers, a cheeseball mix and a spreader.

This is how it started.

This is how the 4 of them turned out.

And this starts the 2 female janitors. I got a cute Christmas bowl for each and decided to get some Movie Theater Butter popcorn, some sodas and some comfy socks so maybe they can have a movie night at home.

And this is the finished product. I think they will be very happy with these gifts. They were fun to put together!

Baby Bump!

Here is a belly picture at 11 weeks. It is hard to tell if I am actually showing or if it is bloating. I think there might be a little something there, but I also found out I have lost some weight when I went to the Dr. so it is really hard to say. I am sure it will be much more noticeable in a couple of weeks. I am a little bit thicker in the belly area anyway..sooo, I will be anxious to see what it looks like when it really starts getting bigger:) The pictures will all be taken in the baby's room. It is hard to see the actual color in the picture but it is a green color. It will match pink or blue!

11 week bump picture

This is a cute little gift we got from our neighbors. I have a few more gifts we have received to take pictures of, but this I had taken a picture of already. It has M&M's in the bottle and Lifesavers around the bottle. Just too cute. A lady here in town makes these.

Baby Darnell!!!!

It gives me great pleasure to finally announce to the blog world that Jeremy and I are going to be parents! YYYYYYAAAAAYYYY! We have waited for a while to be able to "officially" make the announcement. We have told our family, many of our close friends and co-workers. There are several people that know but also a lot of people that did not know. I was so sick, people thought I had the swine flu so we broke down and told people that I did not have the plague!
I am 11 weeks. Baby Darnell is due June 30th! We have had 2 ultrasounds, one at 7 weeks and one at 9 weeks. We have heard the baby's heartbeat 3 times.
Today, I had an appointment and wanted to wait until after today to officially start talking about the baby! I was able to hear the heartbeat today. The first heartbeat was 153, and 173 the second time. Today it was between 160 and 170, approximately 163-165.
I go back on December 23rd for some testing and then meet with my Dr. again on Jan. 11th. We will hopefully find out the sex the end of January.
How have I been feeling? Well so so! I felt great until week 6 and then it hit me one day. I was not sure if it was the flu or if it was morning sickness. I got sick several times that day. Well after that I lost my appetite and basically lived on Salitines and Ginger Ale! I was given a prescription by my Dr. I have tried to not take it if I don't have to. Finally by Thanksgiving I finally started getting my appetite back and was able to eat like a college student on Thanksgiving Day! Then, on Thanksgiving weekend I started catching a cold and lost my appetite again! I am still battling this cold and still blowing my nose all the time and coughing. I will be so happy when it goes away! Today I was weighed and have lost some weight since the last time I was weighed. They are not concerned since this is normal during your first trimester due to morning/all day sickness. I am hoping my second trimester will show some improvement on the sickness front!
I will start taking some baby bump pics now. I did not want to take many to jinx us in case something went wrong.
I will also finally post about our story and what it took for us to get here. It was not an easy process, but it also feels good to be able to talk about it and get it out there and to know we are not the only ones going through it.
So, for now, we will be excited and hope everyone else is happy to hear our exciting news! Now that I have it all out there, I will have lots more to blog about:)

Sunday Already!

This weekend flew by! It was a great weekend but was very short lived. Yesterday I went shopping with my Mom and my Aunt. I got several Christmas presents bought which made me happy. It was an exhausting day. Only because the stores and mall were so incredibly busy. But we had fun!
Jeremy went deer hunting yesterday and took the dogs out pheasant hunting this morning. I was able to sleep in and I slept until 9:00. I think I was pretty pooped from shopping yesterday. Needless to say, my doggies have been sleeping all day long! They have been just as lazy of a bum as me today! I haven't done a whole lot today. I think yesterday wore me out!
I can't believe we are getting so close to Christmas. I need to take inventory and see what all I have bought and what I have left. I really only have this coming weekend to finish up, and of course my lunch hours. We start having parties on the 18th and then I will have no time to do shopping. I hope to get some wrapping done this week in the evenings.
Jeremy and I aren't buying for each other this year. We figured a brand new house and the costs of new things we have put in it is good enough for us. We also just bought 3 trees for our yard so that in itself is a good ol chunk of change.
Right now we are both sitting in the living room on our laptops with our Christmas tree on. Oh how I don't want this Sunday to end. Back to work tomorrow. Good thing, I have a Dr. appt tomorrow so I get to leave a little early. I think I am getting in Christmas break mode. I am ready to be done for 10 days. Jeremy's last day of work will be the 18th, which that day after he gets out of school, we will be hosting the whole GCMS Middle School staff at our house for a Holiday Party. Jeremy goes back to school on January 4th. My last day of work is the 23rd, which I again have a Dr. appt so I will get to leave early again, and I don't return to work until January 4th as well. It will be a good winter break for us.
During our break, we will plan to travel to Chicago to say our goodbyes to Jeremy's sister Darci, her husband Kyle and our niece Maggie and nephew Hank. They will be leaving to move to London for approximately 3 years. Darci works for a company in Chicago who also has a location in London and she has decided to do an international transfer for that time. It will be a great opportunity and experience for them, but we will sure miss having them just 2 hours away. Jeremy and I plan to travel to London during their time living in London. We would be really silly not to. Neither of us have ever been to London. We also plan to wake up Christmas morning in our new house. We will then travel to Pekin to Jeremy's parents house later in the day to spend a couple of days and celebrate Christmas with them, Darci, Kyle and the kids.
Hope everyone has a great week!

O' Christmas Tree!

I love decorating for Christmas! I just love being able to sit with no lights on other than the Christmas tree and enjoying it! This year, since we have a much larger house, I was able to put up a few more Christmas trees than normal. Thanks to Jeremy's parents, we got a new Christmas tree for our living room in honor of his Grandma Darnell. And thanks to Jan, since she was here this weekend, she helped me decorate the two larger trees and the mantle.
Since I am home sick, I decided to do a couple of posts so be sure you read below at other posts. I hope to feel better soon. I started on Sunday with a scratchy throat and congestion and it got worse. I felt very miserable yesterday and laid in bed all day, didn't even get out of bed to watch tv or lay on the couch. I was able to take a few meds which have seemed to help but I decided to stay home again today just to be safe. Plus, I don't want to pass on my germs to my co-workers.

This is the big fatty tree that we have put up every year. Since we got a new one for our living room, I chose a different theme for this tree this year. It has chocolate browns and oranges on it, hard to tell from the picture but it matches the decor in our formal living room. It turned out really pretty!


This is our new tall pre-lit tree in our living room. Again it is hard to see the decor on it but it is mostly bright green, like a lime green and red. It came pre-lit with regular lights and larger lights here in there along with some pine cones. It is really pretty tree!


Here is our mantle. I still have to get a few tall candle holders for the center as I have some shiney bright green candles to put up there but I love the mantle. I am glad we got the mantle piece to put up. Jan and I saw one at Prairie Gardens for $100 and we were like no way! So we got one for $24 and just added our own picks and I added a few ornaments to it I already had. It turned out great.


This is in the chocolate brown and orange room. Just a fun centerpiece to match the tree!


This is actually tree #5, it is just a little table top tree that I thought I would go traditional and put the multi-colored lights on.


This tree has an all red and white ornament theme to it, with all red lights. It is in our formal dining room.

This tree is all white with an all white and silver ornament theme. It is upstairs in one of the windows so you can see it from the street. You should be able to see 3 of our trees from the street.

And of course the dog stockings are hung, including my little sister Chloe's...even though she has been naughty the past couple of weeks!


This centerpiece I got last year at Prairie Gardens. It is the bright green and red! You can see in the background I added the hand sketched picture below the Bon Appetit in the kitchen.


This is all we have up outside for now. Jeremy put in some red and green lightbulbs in our outdoor lights and we put garland and lights on our front porch along with 2 lit trees by the step. We also have a wreath on the front door but it is hard to see from this pic. We may add some more lights later, just aren't sure what all we want to do.

Christmas Parade!

Saturday night, we attended the Gibson City Christmas Parade. It was so much fun! Being new to the community, we did not know what to expect and it was actually really nice for a small community. The parade welcomes Santa into town and Santa is the very last float that comes in. There were vendors along the streets downtown selling foods such as burgers, hotdogs, caramel apples, chili, etc. There were some other items being sold as well as different bake sale tables. Jeremy ended up ordering 2 pies from a student from one of the local churches. We will get them right in time for Christmas. Below are some pictures of a few of the floats. They were really neat! And I took a picture of the streets lined with people to watch the parade. I think everyone in town was at the parade.

This one the tree was too tall to go under the power lines so they had to keep lowering and raising the trailer with the tree on it.

This is Santa's float. Hard to tell Santa and Mrs. Claus are on there since the pic is blurry!