Birthday Bliss

Today was Logan's fourth birthday! We had a great party with lots of friends and family. My sister, Amy, baked and erected a John Deere tractor cake that was to die for!! Our friends Tim and Melissa brought a HUGE inflatable that kept all the kids from 6 to 66 entertained all day! My parents were here, Logan's friends from school, my best friends, and our neighbors all came together for a day of celebration. Addelyn had a John Deere onsie that was perfectly appropriate for the affair. She enjoyed the attention she solicited! 

Thank you all for your love and support of our family. You are our lifeline and we appreciate you!

Hello to the fine folks who enjoy keeping up with the Harris's! Much different than the infamous "Jones's", the Harris's should not be the standard we aspire to meet! 

Well, Princess Addelyn met with the Pediatric surgeon last Friday. She will be having surgery to repair her inguinal hernia on February 9 at about 7am. He will close off the hernia on the left then check the right side for the same anomaly and repair it if needed. 

Meanwhile, Logan is turning four years old this weekend. As most of you know, his birthday is on Sunday, January 25. He was born at 3:56 pm. I pushed for 2.5 hours on that day. He came out with a cone head and screaming! I can't believe it's been four years since that day. I remember it like it was yesterday. I remember the look on Will's face and the words he spoke..."look at him, Babe. Look at him"!!! Enough reflecting....on to the fun stuff!!! He is having a birthday party Sunday! Logan's friend Sam (who is ALMOST as cute as Logan) came to visit today and we went to buy party favors. Logan had decided that he wanted a Spiderman party. That is, until he saw the Diego stuff, the fireman stuff, and of course...the John Deere stuff! We finally decided on good ol' John Deere! What Logan doesn't know is that our friends Tim and Melissa are going to bring a giant inflatable to his party!! Logan is going to be so excited! 

I continue my many woe's of searching for the perfect career! I love having a flexible schedule. I also want to work as a practitioner and bring home a nice paycheck. Luckily, in my field, I can have the best of both worlds. However, finding the job that gives me exactly what I need has been a task that has proven unsuccessful thus far. I found a job posting at St Vincent's for a NP in a clinical setting, 20 hours a week...flexible hours! Of course I applied! I love to think that God has divinely put this job posting in my sight but I don't know! I am not getting the hours I was promised in Alex City, and if you read my previous post about how God was trying to show me that in order to use me he would put me in "toxic environments", you would see why I'm not trying to understand God right now! All I can do is walk with Him and trust. 

On a lighter note, I had my very first tennis match last Saturday. If you have forgotten so quickly that it was like 2 degrees on Saturday, allow me to remind you....IT WAS FREEZING. This is not an ideal setting for my first tennis match. I'm not making excuses or anything but the two girls we were playing had a little bit more insulation than Leah and I!!! I am claiming cold as our out this time! We would never have been stomped like that if it had been 70 degrees...or even 60 for that matter! So tomorrow we will meet back at the courts and practice our serves...which will make or break a tennis match! If you know anything about me, you know how competitive I am and how mortified I was to come home to my husband...who ran a half-marathon in 20 degree weather in 1 hour and 45 minutes that morning...and tell him that we got smoked! He, however, enjoyed the moment! [snarl....]

Hopefully, I will see all of you this weekend. If not, we will certainly have birthday pix to share with you!! 

Momma

Will made a monumental statement tonight. Addelyn has said nothing but "Mama ma ma ma ma" all day long!! I love this! I have begged her to utter my name for 7 months and she finally said it today! What joy! However, Will put things into perspective when he said "Momma....this is the first day of the REST OF YOUR LIFE"!!!!

Not much going on here

Well, there isn't really a lot of excitement in the Harris home. However, there are lots of haps around us!

My friend Carrie is definitely having a girl...her name is Molly Claire. I LOVE her name! She is due right around the same time Addelyn was due. 

My sister-in-law and brother, Michelle and Jeremy, are having a baby girl as well!! This was a great surprise on Friday! Her name is Avery Magnolia! I think it's a really pretty name. Avery is also due to arrive around Addelyn's birthday!

So Addelyn will have a new baby cousin and a new best friend to play with very soon!! Logan is going to be outnumbered everywhere we go! 

On the other hand. My friend Lorie Johnson is very very sick. I have told most of you about her and asked you guys to pray so I will not revisit that issue. 

Something fairly new is Logan's little attitude! He is definitely transitioning from angel to little boy!! He stinks, he's sassy, he gets dirty ALL THE TIME, he plays rough, he loves his boy parts, and he is crazy about his mommy! This morning he got in trouble. He was in the living room eating breakfast and he called to me to bring him some milk (using his finely tuned manners, of course). I told him to wait a second. So Will took the milk to him and Logan must have been disappointed because instead of saying "thank you", he said "Dad, did I ask YOU to bring me some milk?". Will said "no". Logan said "so why are you bringing it to me...?" Yes, Logan got in trouble for that but it was so darn cute! He's also been using adult words like "otherwise". He wants me to scratch the four-wheeler he wanted for Christmas from his list and put it on his birthday list. I think this is because Santa told him that he had to be about 7 to drive a four-wheeler so he thinks he might talk Mom and Dad into getting it for him!

Addelyn is becoming quite mobile. She is cruising well. I expect her to walk within the next two months. She began daycare two days a week. She isn't used to not being the center of attention! She has her surgical consult this Friday. Hopefully they will schedule her surgery quickly. I get nervous about an incarcerated hernia and obsessively check to make sure she's okay. She started saying "Da-da" at about 4 months old. Yesterday, she said "Bubba" This morning...I swear she uttered "Ma-ma". Of course, no one was home except her and I so it doesn't really matter!! 

Logan's big four-year-old birthday is on January 25. I don't think he wants a big party. He wants Lucy, Grant and Reagan to come over for cake and ice cream. So there is no sense in having a big, expensive party for him! He wants a Spider Man cake so I guess I will do my annual birthday cake decorating for him! He has also moved up to the four-year-old class at daycare. He likes being there with his older friends and big-boy toys!

Will went hunting in Troy for the first time in FOREVER! I was glad to see him get back out there and enjoy himself!! I love the idea of hunting, I just don't want to be the one pulling the trigger, killing Bambi's mommy or daddy. And I don't want to see it either. My dad is a big time hunter. He watches hunting shows all the time. He even has been on some hunting shows. He's been all over the world hunting. I grew up around this but I just can't get used to it! So, Will, Honey, you may go hunting whenever you want to. But please don't ask me to go or to look at your trophies!! You do remember what happened the last time I went, don't you?! 

I will update you all on Ms. A's surgery as soon as we make some decisions. 

Until next time my friends.......

More health issues

As I mentioned previously, Addelyn has had a cold this week. She and Logan are doing much better now. Although illnesses are never fun, sometimes they are a blessing. Addelyn's cough brought a potentially serious condition to our attention this week. It looks like she has an inguinal hernia. This occurs when tissue [bowel] pushes through a weakened portion of the muscle. The major risk is that the bowel would become incarcerated (stuck) and the bowel dies. The treatment is surgery. I will call a pediatric surgeon tomorrow and see if he will see her as soon as possible. So, thanks to Addelyn's cough, we have found a potentially dangerous problem. Oh, did I mention that Super Dad is the one who noticed the hernia?! So please be praying for us and that there will be no complications. 

Divine intervention

So here is proof that our God is sovereign. I have been working a lot lately. Many of my scheduled days have fallen on weekends. This leaves my poor sweet husband alone with BOTH kids all weekend long. I can only imagine what he must be going through. He goes out of town occasionally and leaves me with the kids but the difference is: #1-I am Mom and #2-Logan goes to school during the weekdays. He is DAD and he has them on weekends when there is no school which amounts to no relief! He's been a pretty good sport so far (a paycheck makes any sacrifice a little more comfortable)! 

Last Thursday, Will traveled to Troy to visit some family. Meghan, who should be Nanny 911, volunteered to come home with Will for a few days to spend some time with Logan and Addelyn. This was great for us because Will got some relief and I didn't have to worry about everyone being stressed out. Well, on Thursday, Logan and Addelyn were sick. Addelyn has been coughing, congested, febrile and irritable. On Friday, I woke up to two very sick kids. Addelyn was miserable and Logan vomited! Will would take Addelyn to the doctor while Meghan stayed with Logan and I went to work. I felt terrible going to work and leaving my two sick kids and my poor husband to care for them! However, Meggie was with us and she is always happy to pitch in! 

Will and I got to sleep all night, UNINTERRUPTED, for two nights in a row!! Meghan would get up and tend to Addelyn at night and we slept!! Had she not been there, I would have had to call in to work and that would not look good since I have a new position and a new obligation. As a nurse, you can call in and know there are replacements for you. As a practitioner, there is no one else to call. I can't call in. 

So, God was definitely in control of this situation and I am so thankful!