Oh to be a Hog or a Gator

Not a good football day for either of our teams! Man! I was expecting an upset with Texas since we are truely rebuilding from the ground up at Arkansas. I didn't expect a beating. Wow, we let them score 52 points. OUCH! Then to make matters worse Ole Miss beat Florida. Yes you heard right. The school that our old coach, Houston Nutt, went to beat Florida! What? There were upsets all around this weekend and an awful game for my Hogs. However, I wouldn't have traded it for the world. To be able to be in the states during football season is something great! To be in SEC country is almost heaven. I honestly miss La Madd everyday, but when it comes to football season there is no better place to be than here where I can see 6 ballgames at once and at the normal air time! It would have been a sad thing to have to wake up Sunday and hear about all these games instead of watching them. Watch for the rankings tomorrow! The tables have been turned upside down. Oh, and for you SEC haters. I would like for you to go back to today's games and see all the GREAT football that was played in this conference and realize that it was only ONE of the 6 weekends these teams will face that calliber of talent. We don't get easy weekends. So, for now I am sad about the loses of the Hogs and Gators but am so glad to have seen such great football this weekend!! GO SEC!!

Presley is 5 months

Wow, 5 months old. I don't know what about that sounds so...not a baby anymore. Although she clearly is. I mean, what am I saying, she can't even crawl yet. Anyways, she is getting so big so fast and it is amazing to think that little over 5 months ago we didn't even know what she was!!! Life is truly amazing!

In 5 months Presley has been on a total of 10 plane rides over 3 trips if you include the stops in Atlanta, has been to Sea World, San Antonio River Walk, Jacksonville, Fl, Statesboro, Ga, Jonesboro, AR, Decatur, AR, Cabot, AR and the surrounding areas of Gainesville, Fl. She loves animals. Especially the drooling kinds. She gets totally excited when you do the Hog Call! She stares if you do the Gator Chomp but has a soft spot for it for her daddy's sake! Presley loves to talk and entertain whoever will watch her. She has become the new love of my life. Dallas and I think God out did himself when he made our little girl!

I want to personally thank all of you who check this blog often. I know I put a lot of Presley on here, but that is our life now. I appreciate that you care to know what is going on with us and so in turn put up with the constant blogging of the new center of my world.

What is Presley doing now?

She can roll over
Sits completely unsupported
Tries to grab everything in site
Tries to talk to ever will listen
Easily frustrated when can't get to something
Trying to crawl
Sleeps at least 8hrs a night
Getting a sense of humor
Starting to understand jokes (funny faces)
Makes funny faces
AND...she started eating solid foods!! (baby cereal)

Time really is a funny thing. There are times when it seems like we are watching water boil and other times it flies. When you have a little one it is all too often the latter that we get.
Enjoy the slideshow of Presley at 5 months. These are all her faces and her first "meal"!! Oh and yes the hair is still there!

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Another awesome week

Presley and I continued our adventures last week with a trip to Jonesboro, Arkansas to see Dallas' family. His mom had the week off so they flew us up there so that everyone could spend some time with Presley and me too! We had a great time! Presley absolutely loves her Mumsie and grandad. Every morning we would walk up the stairs to see mumsie and Presley would get a huge grin when Mumsie would say, "Good morning Presley!" Grandad was the one who was most successful at getting Presley to cackle. Her uncle Keith had the most luck at getting her to sleep and Presley was most calm around Lisa, probably because Lisa is carrying her cousin and Presley didn't want to disturb the little one!

Most of the week we spent going around town introducing friends of the family to Presley! We got to see a lot of Presley's cousins and even some friends from Grandad's church. Mumsie even took us to some of her favorite shopping stores where she finds insane bargains. We actually found a few treasures to bring back with us.

We got to spend a lot of time with Keith and Lisa (Dallas' sister and her husband). Keith and Presley played the piano together! I promised Presley I would show you all how talented she is. Can you believe she could play Fur Elise the first time she sat down at a piano? I guess she got those skills from Kaci. I would say Keith too but she has no DNA relations to him!! But, he definitely has this little girls heart. Check out Mr. Sandman's skills. He is going to be a GREAT Daddy!

Lisa and Presley had a lot of special girl time. Every time I caught the two of them it was like they were having secret "aunt/niece talks" already!! Oh how hard it will be for me to respect the confidentiality of those conversations! Presley loves her Aunt Lisa!

Presley had a lot of fun walking around the property at Mumsie and Grandad's! Everyday they would take her out and let her look at the trees and feel the Autumn breeze on her little face. One day she picked up a limb. When Grandad was telling me about this limb I was picturing more of a twig, check out the tree my daughter picked up!!

Presley got to spend a lot of quality time with Uncle James (Dallas' Great Uncle). Uncle James loves babies. He loves to bounce babies. Recently James had a stroke and has been pretty well confined to his house, so getting to spend some time with Presley was a welcomed treat.

The Thursday before we left we all went to the county fair. I was really excited about going. I hadn't been to a fair since...well....before Dallas and I got married 5 years ago. It was lots of fun. Mumsie, Grandad and Presley hung out while Keith, Lisa and I rode rides. Ok, I know you are all saying, "wait didn't we just see a pregnant Lisa in this blog" No, Lisa did not ride the rides. She just stood in line with us. The rides were great although I am sure I left Keith blind in the left eye from my hair whipping into it and his hips black and blue from practically getting slung into him from the g force spins!! Before we headed home I wanted to take Presley to the petting zoo. She loved it! She especially liked the slobber and slime coming out of the animals noses and mouths. Oh to be a kid again!!

All in all it was a wonderful trip. We are however glad to be home with Daddy again. I will say, though, that Presley has taken 2 1/2 hr naps everyday since we have been home. The trip wore her out! We did get some funny videos during the week, but I couldn't blog them all. So, here are two for your enjoyment. The first is Keith mi miking Presley's noises. However, when she hears her squeals back she doesn't like them so much

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

This one is us playing with Presley at dinner time. She is into "talking" now and it is so funny. I apologize that this video is so shaky. I had been laughing for about 30min and was still laughing when I was trying to record this. This video is proof of the joy of children

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Presley will be 5 months tomorrow. Watch for a blog!

What a week!!

This past week Presley and I went to San Antonio to help my sister, Kaci, with Katelynn while she was at a conference. We had such a great time. However, it wasn't without a little drama!!

When we arrived some good friends of ours were there with Kaci. Jo and Vicki are friends of Kaci's from Cabot, Arkansas who I had the privilege of befriending while I stayed with Kaci in March. They are such wonderful ladies! When we are all together you would never know that their is at least a 20+ year difference between all of us. Their love of life and simple way of viewing the world is so refreshing. Plus it is full of wisdom that I try to cling to every minute I am around them. We all sat around laughing and giggling like we have been friends forever. While they were there we went to Sea World with the little girls. What fun!! I honestly thought it would be hard for me with Presley. Nope! She LOVED it! I know you are thinking how can a 4month old enjoy Sea World. She did. She watched everything. The colors and songs helping in grabbing her attention. I just can't believe how alert she is. It is incredible to watch her take in everything around her for the first time. Katelynn enjoyed it also. She was such a trooper. She took the heat and walking like a pro! My sister really has done an incredible job with her!!

Kaci and I had a day to ourselves before she had to go to work. We had a full day planned until I had to throw a twist in there. I had been having a lot of pain in my hand and wrist and it was only getting worse. To the point I was having a hard time holding Presley and knew I would have a hard time with both girls if I didn't check it out. So, we headed to the emergency room. We sat there for 3hrs just to get Aleve and a soft cast to stabilize it. I didn't get a diagnosis, but my personal diagnosis is tendinitis. I wore the cast for the rest of that day and at night the rest of the week. I had to have it off to handle the girls. After the emergency room we headed off to the Alamo. HAHAHAHA!!! People are not joking when they talk about how small it is. It was neat to see a piece of history, though, and the parks around it were beautiful!

I had the two girls for the next two days by myself. That was fun! All day all I heard was "Hey Presley!" from my niece Katelynn! She is getting super big. She talks all the time and mi micks everything you do. She loves Presley so much. Every time I turned around she had Presley in a head lock. It was the "I love you so much that I don't know how hard to squeeze" hug little ones do at that age. Presley loved Katelynn just as equally. You could tell because she let Katelynn squeeze her without complaint and because she couldn't take her eyes off of her. There was only one problem. They felt a huge void all week and couldn't figure out what it was. Then it dawned on them, their little man Dylan wasn't there. That is their older cousin. They think he rocks.

Then the next two days Presley and I spent with Katelynn and her dad James. James, Kaci's ex, came to see Katelynn since she was so close. It was so great to get to see Katelynn with James however, I couldn't help but think the whole time that this would soon come to an end when he would have to head back to Arkansas. We went to the botanical gardens in San Antonio and ate at the bistro. It was fabulous. That night we went to the river walk and road the boats and got a tour of all the historical buildings that line the river. It was like family again. I wanted to be hurtful and angry that the situation isn't that anymore, but I couldn't. I guess there just comes a time when you realize the loss of someone dear will always hurt, but that it is hard to stop loving them when there are too many good memories.

The next day, Friday, James, Kaci, Katelynn, Presley and I were going to go to the zoo. However,Kaci had other plans for us. She woke me up at 6am telling me we needed to go to the emergency room. Yes, that would be out 2nd visit in 5 days!! She had a sore throat and wanted to get some antibiotics to help her for her trip home on Saturday. Well, she got antibiotics and a 2 night stay in the hospital. When we got to the ER her white blood cell count was 25000 when the norm is suppose to be between 5&10,000. Nasty infection! She was admitted that night and not released until Sunday evening at 11:00pm. We both had to extend our flights from Saturday to Monday. Oh, and my mom flew in in case it got worse. It didn't, thank goodness, but we got to spend a little time with mom!!! I knew Kaci had something up her sleeve when all this went down.

Coming home Presley and I got delayed in Atlanta due to severe thunderstorms. We were suppose to be home at 7:45 but didn't get home until 11:00pm. We were both so tired. Presley did extremely well on the flights, though, and seems to love traveling. She almost seems to thrive in the hustle and bustle of trips. It was a wonderful trip all in all. Now we get to do it all again this Saturday. Presley and I will be heading to Jonesboro to visit Dallas' family. Pray for us. We will be tired!!!

Click here to see all the pictures of our trip. (pictures)