Picture Of The Day!

#58 Belongs To Me

Pre-Season Jamboree Game

You can just pretend the question is rhetorical.

Sorry guys - you know I love you - and we all have our HUGE flaws, but seriously.

Is there any particular reason why men think that just because they are driving in their cars that nobody can actually see them picking their noses?

I think it is a valid question.

Case in point:

We were at a stop light and the guy next to us - fabulous suit, expensive car with an Alabama alumni tag - apparently had gobs of business to tend to while chatting it up on his cell phone.

Why was I looking you may be asking?

It was like a train wreck, I just couldn't rip my eyes away.

I was appalled and desperately wanted to roll down the window and offer him a tissue...or a baby wipe...or hand sanitizer...or the number to a good window tinting company...

(shudder)

Yes, I know how very blessed we are.

Today we had our follow-up with Dr. Metz.

Addie cooperated fully and was just wonderful although it was a lengthy appointment since she had to have her eyes dilated.

When we first arrived, Addie hit meltdown in the waiting room.

I managed to exit the waiting room with absolutely no dignity intact, took Addie into the hallway for a mini-exorcism and when we returned back to the waiting room, she was perfectly fabulous!

Dr. Metz's assistant, Michelle, was beyond wonderful. She was so sweet to Addie and managed to get all the drops into her eyes without any fussing - from any of us.

Dr. Metz is just amazing and was pleased to see Addie doing so well. He was kind and asked me how Addie was doing. He genuinely wanted to know how she has been- which I thought was wonderful.

He said that nothing has changed since our last visit when Addie was sixteen-months old.

That is wonderful news!

He was (I think) a bit surprised at how normal all components of Addie's vision is. He said that he typically sees abnormalities in "children with similar"(he never finished his sentence)...

We don't have another follow-up for TWO YEARS!

Don't think for one second that I didn't leave there feeling incredibly guilty. I know how blessed we are and I know many other families have children that struggle with loss of vision, lack of mobility, seizures, etc...that we were told would be a part of Addie's condition. It hurts my heart to see others endure that pain.

Our road is definitely not an easy one, but I do know that it could be so much more difficult. I can only pray that our journey provides hope and encouragement to others, because there are times when I am the one that needs the hope and encouragement.

I thank GOD for our blessings.

Thank you for your continued support and prayers.

~~~~~

Addie wasn't particularly thrilled with having a camera flashed in her eyes and she wasn't real thrilled with having blurry vision all night.

Blame it on the rain...

or the fact that I got into bed at 4:10 a.m. (thanks to my husband for noting the exact time I crawled into bed).

I was beyond irritated yesterday and the filter that I try so desperately to keep on my mouth - was gone.

In the midst of putting Addie's shoes on so that we could get to football practice, while my husband was in bed incredibly sick, the following conversation took place:

Julien: "Mom, why don't you buy Addie a pair of flip-flops?"

Evil Wretched Mother: "Addie has a hard enough time walking in athletic shoes with inserts, much less trying to walk in shoes that are guaranteed to be a tripping hazard."

Julien: "Well, you need to buy her shoes so that she will fit in."

Evil Wretched Mother with a Snarky uncalled for tone: "She will never fit in. It doesn't matter what shoes we buy her, she will never fit in. People will always find a reason to make fun of her!"

Julien: "I just want her to fit in, Mom."

Evil Wretched Mother: "I know Julien." "We just have to pray to God that she will continue to be surrounded by loving friends like she has now."

Julien: "Can we just put her in her other shoes or buy her some sandals?"

....he didn't want Addie to wear her "special" shoes to his football practice....all the other little girls and Mom's wear their summer shoes and he felt Addie should as well.

Every little detail matters and it's amazing the things that he picks up on.

Evil Wretched Mother grabbed Addie's Lelli Kelly's and out the door we went.

There's a Rx for that...

I hate lecturing. I really, really do.

At the end of the night of this occurrence, there was no lecture, only my first born telling me that he distinctly remembers me telling him not to play around in the house.

The story that follows is drastically downplayed from the actual events.

Julien had the little Monkey in the living room "playing", which amounted to screeches of alternating delight and anger as he no doubt was torturing her and she was trying her best to pay him back.

Next thing I heard was Julien yelling for me and telling me that he seriously needed me.

When I walked into the living room, I saw the little Monkey standing over Julien.

He was on the floor in severe pain.

After a quick assessment, I discovered the source of all the commotion.

Apparently, Julien somehow tripped and fell onto the PlayStation controller (that had no business being in the middle of my living room floor).

When he tripped, it happened so fast that he didn't have time to break his fall and he landed full force onto the controller - with his knee. At first glance, his knee looked incredibly bad - the picture below simply does not do the injury justice - his knee had already started to swell, was bleeding a good bit and there was a nice size half-moon crater .

Of course it was already so late in the evening that all the urgent care clinics were closed and there was no way I was taking him to the E.R. so that we could sit for hours on end in a room full of stomach virus infected children - nope, no way, not doing it.

I cleaned up the wound, gave him some pain meds and told him that we would check in with the doctor in the morning.

Being the Mother that I am, I don't panic in situations like this and sometimes I probably under react.

I was incredibly worried about his knee and checked on him throughout the night, having to change the bandages a few times because of the bleeding.

Thank goodness that we were able to get in to see Dr. Dudgeon, because I had this horrible feeling that if I didn't take Julien in soon enough that he would develop some sort of knee ailment that would plague him for the rest of his life all because I didn't rush him to the doctor the night before.

A thorough physical examination of the knee and three x-rays later, we got the all clear.

Thanks to my procrastination, it was too late to get stitches, so the hole in my sons knee will have to heal on its own.

While we were waiting on Dr. Dudgeon to come back into the room to give us the results, Julien made the funniest little joke.

He was so nervous that Dr. Dudgeon was going to tell him that he had wasted a perfectly good office visit on a knee that was perfectly fine.

Julien told me that Dr. Dudgeon would probably come back into the room with a prescription for:

"10 cc's of man-up"

That kid cracks me up.

The little Monkey is taking pity on Julien and giving his bandaged knee lots of kisses.

Each time Julien gets out of the shower, Monkey "runs" to find the first aid box and stands next to me handing me just one boo-boo band-aid and then holds the neosporin after I am finished with it.

She watches intently as I place the boo-boo band-aid on his knee and then she promptly leans over and kisses it all better.

So...I don't win any Mom of the Year Awards, but Julien is going to be all better soon and have a nice scar to show his children one day.

Check-up on the Monkey's little ears

We took Chunk back for a visit with the best ENT - ever.

Monkey's little ears have appeared to be working perfectly, but I felt the need to check back in with our ENT (and besides, I missed seeing everybody).

A picture of Monkey when she wasn't crying in the car...too bad it didn't last. Once we arrived and Monkey had her vitals checked and tympanogram completed, we headed to the exam room.

That is when I brought out my handy-dandy camera and bombarded Keitra with pictures. Keitra is one of those very rare nurses that are just beyond fabulous.

Heck - everybody in our ENT's office is fabulous! In addition to having a great sense of humor, Keitra knows who we are.

We are not just some random patient with a chart number who I have to explain situations to each and every time I call or we go in.

Keitra actually acts genuinely happy to see us when we come in and when I have to call her - she is always right on top of whatever the situation may be.

Now...if I could just clone her....

Then...there is the best ENT - ever.

Dr. Davis is just absolutely heaven-sent.
From the first time that I met him, he had me hooked.
Sweet Monkey was just four months old the first time we met him.
He treated us with respect and he didn't buy into the whole "Wait and See" game that we are forced to play.
He has been wonderful to us, has taken care of Monkey through three surgeries and Chris through one.
In addition to that, he is blessed with the most wonderful wife and children - ever.
He is just such a good person - although Monkey makes it appear otherwise. As much as I can't stand the thought of having his schedule become more crammed than it already is, it is only fair to tell you that if you are in need of a fabulous ENT, he is the man to call. I wouldn't trust any other ENT to care for our family.
Good thing he is young and won't be going anywhere!

Drama for a FULL two weeks

Tonight has just been awful. Julien is still not feeling well, Addie now has an ear infection and Julien tried his best to break his knee tonight - story later.

I'm beyond coherency at this point.

So, the picture below has absolutely nothing to do with anything other than even my cat appears to be fed up with all the drama too.

If only he had opposable thumbs, he could finally see what all the commotion with the cat in the hat is really all about.

The Vominator and Her Brother

For the past eleven days my house has been plagued with cooties.

First, the little Monkey got incredibly sick and that lasted on and off for eight days.

On day seven, the little carrier Monkey decided to share the love and passed the cooties off to Julien.

Those cooties have managed to completely level Julien.

He has missed two days of school and it is to the point that he just told me before bed that if he doesn't feel better in the morning, he wants to go to the doctor.

That is one serious cootie bug.

~~~~~~~

If you will notice in this picture, Cootie Girl has her hair in the traditional:

Vominator Up-Do

Elastic Hair Band - $0.05

Hair Brush - $14.95

Keeping vomit out of a toddler's hair - Priceless

and for everything else, there's Woolite Complete HE

The little Monkey loves ducks and loves playing with the game as part of her therapy.

It's amazing how one game can be so much fun, yet so much work - and the payoff is tremendous!

How to make friends and impress strangers

Take your two children to a football scrimmage.

Let the oldest one get incredibly sick on the way to the restroom, in the restroom and on the way to the car

and

Let the youngest one vomit all over the baseball field and her shoes as her Mother quickly turns her away from the spectators watching the scrimmage.

I know, you are just beside yourself trying to digest why you didn't think of this first.

We truly are the classiest and most graceful family you will ever, ever meet.

I'm blaming it all on

Jason Voorhees.

Seriously.

Next Friday the 13th, I'm thinking I just need to stay at home.

Although the following story may reflect actual events, names and places have been changed in order to protect the identity of those involved.

We knew about THE wedding way in advance.

I reserved "mean Aunt Diane" as a babysitter as soon as we knew the date of the wedding.

Little did we know that "Lacrosse Practice" would be scheduled for that same night, along with "mean Aunt Diane" closing on a house at the last minute and moving, all in the same day.

We also didn't know that "mean Aunt Diane" would end up in the hospital following the events of this day.

We took the day off work to help with the move.

The move that took place in the middle of nowhere "Egypt" - in August - with an Alabama humidity level of 121%.

Being the good little planner that I am, I knew that in order to leave "Egypt" and have enough time to go home, get ready for the wedding and then pick up the kids and get them back home and settled for the evening, I would have to leave the middle of nowhere by 2:00 p.m.

Promptly at 2:00 p.m., I got into my car, turned the key and nothing happened.

Nothing.

Not even a little whimper from my poor car.

My car had slipped into a coma and was completely unresponsive and according to my local State Farm agent, it would take an eternity for a tow truck to locate our whereabouts in the middle of "Egypt".

Had I known, I would have left a trail of breadcrumbs.

Thank goodness that Chris and my brother were in the middle of "Egypt" with me, because we made the decision to leave my car so that we could still hopefully make it to the wedding on time.

After a hurried afternoon, we managed to get it all together...and as we walked out our front door for a quick picture, this amazing bolt of lightening came out of nowhere, followed by a monsoon.

Thank goodness that the humidity ruined my hair before the rain could get to it.

We gave up on picture time and ran to our transportation for the evening. The transportation for the evening just so happened to be my husband's truck.

Not exactly my first choice for an evening out, but by this point, I was just happy to be going out.

When we arrived at the private club and pulled up to valet, I wanted nothing more than to just crawl onto the floor and hide.

The sight before us went something a little like this:

Mercedes

BMW

Lexus

Mercedes

BMW

BMW

Audi

....then us:

Toyota

Toyota truck with rubber floor mats and neoprene seat covers.

Not only did I feel like the valet guy was smirking as he walked up to us, but there was just no ladylike way to emerge from a truck in four-inch heels, no running boards and my dress clinging to the neoprene covered seat.

You know...the only thing missing was a rebel flag and a gun rack.

Talk about class...had it been a cruise ship, we would have been down on the lower decks having an evening drink with Leonardo DeCaprio.

Sigh...

At least the sunset was beautiful...Jason Voorhees continued to rub his luck all over us for the next week as we dealt with "mean Aunt Diane" having a heart attack and being put into the hospital and having surgery, my two children becoming incredibly sick and every little nit picky thing that could go wrong - did.

I am almost certain that we are emerging from the grasp of Friday the 13th...although, I feel entirely sure that my favorite aunt - "Aunt Air"(she has a new nickname thanks to me not proofreading a text) and I am now banned from one of the local hospitals.

Yikes...it was bad, bad, bad.

Thankfully, "mean Aunt Diane" is at home recovering, I haven't received an official restraining order from the local hospital and there has been no official communication banning Toyota Trucks from entering any local private clubs.

Life is good...

THE Wedding

August 13, 2010

Most of you will remember Trevin and for those of you who need a refresher you can click here and here.

The time since I met The Campbell Family has flown by and it was a sincere honor to be present for Trevin's wedding.

This was such a sweet moment - they were walking back in for the reception...with sweet Trenton by their side.

The moment left me speechless and fighting back the tears. Speaking of sweet Trenton, he was fabulous during the wedding and reception and looked perfectly handsome walking with his Mommy... but yet was not impressed with having a camera flashed in his face at a moment when he just wanted a hug from his Daddy. Of course I didn't get a lot of in-between pictures, but I took a moment to capture Trevin leaving - mainly because I was absolutely certain that I was going to be the cause of a massive fire. Since I am ever so graceful, I opted out of the sparklers and chose to stand back and watch the display.

The entire evening was beautiful and I was so glad to be a part of it!

nest EGgS design

Most of you will remember the very beautiful and talented Michelle from my post back in November.

Well, now there is one more reason to be completely impressed by her.

She has started a new business venture called nest EGgS design and I had the honor of receiving the most beautiful bracelet from her!

She has many different designs available and has even just started selling handmade picnic tables for little ones - which are just incredibly adorable as well!

Take a moment (or two) and check out Michelle's beautiful work! Pictures provided by Kim at Kim Sharit Photography!

Coming up soon...

THE Wedding.

That we almost missed...thanks to it being Friday the 13th.

The important question of the day is whether or not my given name really was "Julie" and for some reason my family has been lying to me all these years.

I could (and did) pass for a "Julie"...

Classic

Lets take a break from pictures to talk about one of my most embarrassing moments...ever.
Since last Friday - the 13th - there has been one awful thing after another after another and I'm really just fed up with all the mess.
Today was no exception.
Inside of this little bag are my shoes.

My comfy "walking around the hospital" shoes.

I put them into this bag and put them by the basement door so that I wouldn't forget them this morning.

The bag was still sitting in the exact same place when I got home tonight.

I have no idea how I walked around the bag in order to leave this morning.

Today was one of those days, rushing from here to there and back again...in heels.

The heels that are comfortable enough when I'm walking around at work, but today was filled with lots of walking:

to the car
into daycare
back out to the car
into work
back out to the car
down one level of the most disgusting hospital parking deck I have ever, ever seen
into the hospital
down hallway, after hallway, after hallway, in the elevator, down the hallway...reverse
out of the smelly hospital
back up the ramp of the most disgusting park deck ever

That's when I decided that I needed to stop at the bank, but by that time, I had had enough of walking in my heels...so I opted for the drive-through.
Simple enough - my transaction was prepared in advance, I pulled up, rolled down the car window and placed my transaction into the little drawer.
The girl "finished" my transaction, stuck the receipt into the drawer for me to sign.

I retrieved it, signed it and stuck it back in the drawer.

The girl wasn't paying attention and out of the drawer my signed transaction receipt went - proudly displaying my signature and personal information.

The girl asked me where it went and I oh so nicely told her that it flew out of the drawer, but that I would pull forward and retrieve the receipt because she had to scan my signature back in before she would give it to me - along with my driver's license.

I got out of the car in my heels and dress - in the Alabama August heat, tracked down the receipt and as I was turning to get back into my car, someone started to pull in behind me.
So...I walked up to the drive-through window, put the stupid receipt back into the drawer and waited for the girl to scan the receipt and give me back my driver's license.

That is when she informed me that I needed to tell the car that just pulled in to BACK-UP so that I could back my car up...which made zero sense.

I told her just to give me my receipt and drivers license and I would be on my merry way.
Well...wouldn't you know it.

All of a sudden , her computer locked up on her and according to her, "there were boxes popping up in front of other boxes" and she would have to redo my transaction.

Which she did..and duplicated it...and then decided she had to undo it all...while these random "boxes" kept popping up...and as I'm standing at the drive-through window.

As I was beginning to wish that Calgon would just come swoop me away, along with a vat of Margaritas...EIGHT more cars pulled up.

EIGHT.

EIGHT cars then see me standing at the freakin' drive-through window.

The girl was still pecking away at her keyboard, so I mouthed to the driver behind me that it "wasn't me"...it "was her" as I pointed inside the drive-through window.

I smiled, trying to seem pleasant, but all the while knowing that every single person who had pulled up had to be wondering why I couldn't manage to conduct my drive-through business like every other person in the entire world.

I could hear my husband's voice saying something about how women don't know how to drive, roll down the car window (merge onto the interstate) or walk and chew gum at the same time ..etc....
Ages passed before the girl finally asked me to come inside.

I politely told her that I would NOT come inside and wait in line. (Holy cow - are you kidding - just give me my stuff and I'll be on my way!!!).

I was seriously ready to have an all out tantrum - but I kept that stupid smile plastered on my face.

At that point, she told me that SHE would bring everything out TO ME at my car.

So, I walked back to my car, all the while knowing that each driver behind me was cursing, making comments about how thankful they were that I was leaving and probably even commented on how incredibly white my legs looked against my black dress.
Five minutes later , after three trips back and forth to my car, the girl had finally finished my oh-so-simple banking transaction.
I was mortified and had to look ridiculously inept at banking.

The only thing that would have made it perfect was if I had toilet tissue stuck to the bottom of my shoe as I walked back to my car.

I think it's going to be a while before I visit that branch location again...

For all of you snarky little people out there.

No, I "couldn't have just gotten back into my car and drove around".

There are times when it just becomes the principle of the matter.

The best part of the morning drive

is when we arrive at daycare and the screaming Monkey is calm and quiet Monkey realizes that we are approaching the field with the horses.

We roll down the windows on the car and wave to the horses and then the little Monkey yells out and tells the horses "bye-bye" and we tell them to have a good day!

The sweet joy on her face is priceless!Although, I do think it's a little bit rude that they never even acknowledge us...

This scenario is oh so similar to one when Julien was much younger than the little Monkey.
We would always pass this house that had a group of deer out on their land.
These deer stood in the exact same place for years - never, ever moving.
Each time we would drive by, Julien would get really excited to see the deer and we would roll down the windows and say "hello" to the deer.
It wasn't until much later that Julien finally asked me why the deer never moved and became a little suspicious over their activity level...

Our daily commute

Chris and I look at each other every morning on the way to work and ask why we ever chose to move to the little town we live in now.

We live exactly 8.8 miles from work and it took us 1 hour and 37 minutes to make it to work.

This time can fluctuate drastically.

Some mornings, it may take us only 30 minutes, it all depends on traffic.

The painfully slow traffic...
All the dust you see that has accumulated on the dashboard is from my car aging....as we wait and wait and wait...
and wait....

We pass over this very deep quarry each morning....too bad we can't tunnel through...
yep....still waiting...
oh...a lovely cow pasture - minus the cows.
I think they all died while waiting for their feed to arrive.
Yep....still stuck in traffic...
Thank heavens Chunk wasn't screaming on this particular morning.
I don't think the car ever got up to a speed that upset her equilibrium!

Let me just say...we have big, big dreams for the coming years.

Part of that includes a commute that doesn't involve hours spent in the car each and every day.

First day of MIDDLE SCHOOL!

Julien makes me so proud.

I can't wait to see the accomplishments and milestones that are met this school year.

According to Julien's check-up yesterday, I am still towering over him by a mere 1 1/4 inch.

Rotten, jealous little Monkey wanted her picture taken too... Julien acted so silly and stopped every few feet on the way to the car so that I could take a picture of him.

Then rolled down the window for one more photo op...

before we left for school...

Oh my....

goodness.
How the heck did he grow so fast?
Before I took this picture and the ones to follow, Julien asked me if I was going to post the pictures on the blog and (in a mocking tone) say something all sappy about his first day of school.

I assured him that I was because it was my duty as a Mother to act all mushy and embarrass him.

I'm just trying to fulfill my Motherly duties.

Update from Monkey's new class at school

I received this update from Monkey's new teacher.

Monkey is doing well, although we are still getting settled and working out the kinks....and still trying to sleep at night.

I know that I can sometimes write a book in one post, so I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

R-O-T-T-E-N

The little Monkey was very upset when we arrived at dinner last night and didn't want to sit in her highchair.

Look who came to the rescue....he held her the entire time!

Good grief, that child is spoiled!

A word of advice

If you have children - of any age - please do not place them on tall objects or let go of their hands while walking with them for the remainder of this week.

Apparently, my presence or the general association of knowing me is causing children to fall and get hurt.

Case #1 - At dance, a little girl fell and got quite the awful, bleeding, swollen, bruised boo-boo on her forehead. It was terrible because we all saw it happen, but it was so fast that none of the parents could prevent it.

Case #2 - One of Addie's sweet little friends fell onto a concrete sidewalk and ended up in the E.R. with a skull fracture - thank goodness he will be okay...

Case #3 - Chris and I were at a local Deli when a little boy was walking to get a drink, lost his footing and slid right into the counter. O-U-C-H.

Case #4 - The little Monkey was sitting on my bed surrounded by six pillows. I turned to go into the bathroom and before Chris could grab her, she fell - head first - off my bed. Five of the six pillows and the extra soft wool rug - broke her fall. She basically landed on a bed of fluff - luckily it was just her feelings that were hurt!

Case #5 - While at an appointment today, Julien and I heard the situation unfold as a baby fell off the exam table (from what we gathered listening to the Mom) in the room next to ours. There wasn't mass panic, so it appears that the baby is fine.

All of this since Saturday.

So...please keep your children safe in your arms or with their feet securely planted on the ground and please make sure to keep them away from any stray banana peels that might be laying around.

I hate the summer

It's August, it's Alabama and people are crazy.

I keep checking my handy-dandy desk calendar (yes, they still make paper calendars), thinking that it must be a full moon...for the last four weeks or so.

Julien has started football practice and will start back to school this week, Addie just transitioned to a new classroom at her school and then there are a multitude of ginormous things that have kept me sidetracked and completely off schedule.

Thanks to Addie's transition, she is not sleeping.

My four hours of sleep each night has dropped to somewhere around two and I have sank to the level of begging her to please get some sleep...and Julien has been praying hard that Addie will start sleeping again soon (I guess I'm just that evil).

To top off a typical day in the life of us, it is so freakin' hot.

I discovered yesterday that Addie is much more like me than I ever knew was possible.

The awful Alabama heat makes her crazy.

Yesterday at Julien's football practice, Addie morphed into this evil, demonic child that insisted on humiliating me for all the world to see.

At somewhere around the hour and a half mark, she hit meltdown.

Chris and I sweetly started packing up so that I could take her to the car.

I offered to let the little monster hold her books and walk with me and all that did was infuriate her.

She started throwing her books, hitting Chris and Me and then proceeded to fall out screaming in the grass.

I somehow managed to coerce her through the gate, when she just so happened to look down and saw gravel.

She then decided to pick up handfuls of the gravel and throw it at the ground.

Screaming, fussing and crying all the while.

At that moment, she fell out on the sidewalk and as I reached down to gently remove her from the concrete, I noticed that lots of people were taking notice of the little evil demon.

Like I told Chris, people stare at us all the time anyway, we don't need to give them yet another reason to stare!

All I could do was smile that sweet Mom smile and pray that I found a vat of holy water on the way back to the car.

Once we made it to the car, I sat the little demon on my lap and turned the air on full blast...and what'd you know???

My sweet, little Monkey returned.

She was all smiles and somehow managed to erase the proceeding scenes from her sweet little mind.

I have pictures and stories to share, lots of sweet little things going on in the midst of chaos.

For now, Monkey is sleeping peacefully, so I am going to try to find my way to bed.

The odd thing is that somehow a sensor has been placed right beneath my pillow and as soon as my head hits the pillow, an alarm sounds, waking the little Monkey from a sound sleep....and then it will be morning and we will start it all over again.

I love being a Mom....I think life would be incredibly boring if I had a full nights rest, a clean house and a day with nothing to do but relax.

Picture of the day!

Rotten little Monkey held Julien down and tortured him with kisses and lots of love "pats"...and thought the whole thing was quite humorous!

Trying to be pitiful

In the stinky elevator in the parking deck, Addie tried her best to look just absolutely pitiful.

Not over the Coban wrapped tightly around her arm, but over the I.D. bracelet on her leg.

As for the Coban and the mean lab work, this was one very rare occasion when Addie took issue with getting her blood drawn.

She had tears just streaming down her face, which upset Julien terribly.

I remembered the lady who took Addie's blood from the last time we had to go to clinic lab, she is the one who was so incredibly sweet to us and took it upon herself to clean up the mess on Addie's left arm that was left by someone that wasn't as detailed with their care (Ahem).

Anyway, I could have given this woman a huge hug, she was amazing with Addie, found a vein and had the whole process over and done with in a matter of what felt like seconds.

Addie didn't freak out over the needle or the blood...it was those silly gloves!

What the heck?!

Our friends at Children's E.R. Department!

After our visit with Dr. Ness and then the stop at the lab for the mean blood work, we headed down to the E.R. to see an amazing group of people that we honestly don't see often enough!

This group of people began supporting Addie three years ago and have been amazing in showing their support, checking in on us and being ever so gracious when we stop by for a visit.

(Staci, don't hate me for the picture...it's too cute!)
A little bribery goes a long way...
Addie and Julien always leave the E.R. feeling like they just won the lottery - most of you will remember one of the most unforgetable prizes that Addie brought home - Big Bertha.

Addie was so amazing this time.

She picked out one little baby as her prize, but when another baby was shown to her, she traded the babies (I would like to think that she knows it's nice to share and not nice to hoard things.).

She was very happy and content with the baby and then someone offered Addie a blanket for her baby.
She immediately declined the blanket because she thought she would have to trade the baby for the blanket, but once she knew that it was okay to have both, she was thrilled.
She "asked" Julien to take baby out of the wrapper for her and then took baby to be swaddled...

She then loved on the baby all the way back to school, took the baby into school with her and placed the baby and the blanket in her cubby.

Since baby and blanket became a part of our family, Addie has carried her into every corner of our house.

Right now, baby is residing in my bed and in the morning, Addie will want to get onto my bed and search for her so that she can take her back to school tomorrow.

Sweet Addie is such a good Mommy.

Thank you guys for making us feel so special!

We are so honored and we are so thankful for you!