Life with Mili

Mili wore her new clothes that Nanny (Brian's mom) made her today to church. She was so cute that everyone was commenting on her outfit. I just had to take pictures of how cute she looks in it.

I wanted to blog about Mili's cute sayings while I can remember them and so I will have record of them.

I love the way she says and does everything but these are a few things that I just couldn't live without.

I love the way Mili.......

says, "I yuv you, Mommy" "I yuv Sadie, Mommy" "I yuv you, Daddy"

says, "I miss Daddy, Mommy" while Brian is at work

says "DV-dv" (emphasis on the capital letters) for a DVD

says "movie box" for her portable DVD player

puts a 't' on the end of many words and most of her numbers

says "take a look, Mommy" while using her imagination and looking thru her imaginary binoculars

does a Pierette after I fix her hair and says, "I bootiful, Mommy"

says, "I'm myself" for I can do it myself

says, "Mommy lay down down floor" when she wants me to play with her in the floor

sings, "Kinkle, Kinkle little star"

sings the ABC song and always leaves out "EFG"

counts everything (hoping she is not OCD) mainly every stair at the apartment complex (there are many of them)

jumps over every crack, counting them at the same time, on the sidewalk at our apartment complex

says, "I need new new milk" when she needs more milk or wants cold milk

dances ( I mean breaking it down) while Brian is practicing for praise team at church

opens her door in the morning from her crib and in a quiet sweet voice says, "I wake, Mommy"

tongue flies out between her teeth when she says, "Sadie Beth"

always says, "Mommy" after everything, if you can't tell by the above statements.

wants to always help me with Sadie (change her diaper, bathe her, or just wants to hold her)

"reads" the Very Hungry Caterpillar book to me

says, "what's wrong, Mommy" in hopes that I will in turn ask her "what's wrong, Mili"

says, "Jesus loves me" when she is looking at her bible

says, "I yuv church"

says, "Emily Yeung (from the disney channel) do's that" she says do's instead of does

says, "I want NO ______" instead of saying "I don't want that"

Baby Bare Feet

Ok, so this is my weakness......My girl's feet!!! I love baby feet (who doesn't???) and I especially love my babies feet!!!! You can tell with the massive amount of pictures (I took tons more, these are just the best ones...the joy of digital cameras).

It was hard for me to concentrate on taking the pictures since I was kissing those sweet bare feet between takes. Mili loved doing these takes since I had to put Sadie on Mili's back or stomach to take some of the shots. Mili said, "Mommy, Sadie on me again.....please."

As you scroll down you will see that even Daddy got in on some of the action.

Hope you enjoy our girl's sweet feet (probably not as much as we do, unless you are a grandparent, aunt, or uncle...smile).

Have a great weekend!!!

I CAN NOT Believe IT!!!

When my Mom and Sisters were here at the end of August, my mother-in-lawn (MIL) called me with some amazing news. She called to tell me that her and my father-in-law (FIL) would be coming to see Brian get ordained as a Deacon September 30th. I was so excited but she told me I couldn't tell Brian. At that time my FIL didn't know yet either.



The church he is the pastor of collected money for pastor appreciation month (October) to send he and my MIL here for several days. I have been keeping this secret for what seems like an eternity. Brian did not get to go home with me in May due to cost of another plane ticket and he wanted to save all of his time off to help me after Sadie was born. He has really been missing home and his family. It helped tremendously to have my Mom and Sisters come.



I finally called my MIL on Monday to see when the church was going to present them with the tickets. She said they had done it on Sunday night and they were both so excited. I wanted them to tell Brian so we arranged for them to call Tuesday night on the video phone at 7:00 EST so I could ensure that Brian would be home from work. I was trying to stall dinner knowing they would be calling and I didn't want to be in the middle of eating. Brian didn't suspect a thing. When they called they told us and Brian cried. I was ecstatic not to have to keep the secret anymore.

Well, that is not all of the surprise. My in-laws said that there was a surprise for me too. Then MY PARENTS showed up on the video phone screen. They told me they were coming too. WHOO HOOOOO!!!! I cried like a baby (it was the ugly cry so I covered my face). I am so excited that we don't have to wait until Christmas to see everyone. Getting to see my Mom twice in one months time is too much for me to take in right now (all together I will see my Mom a total of four times this year....something I thought was impossible while we lived here). My Dad is actually flying on a plane, which is a miracle in itself.

My heart is filled with great JOY for my parents and especially my in-laws to get to see such a special occasion in our lives (especially for Brian). Brian had been so bummed that no one from home would be here to support him. I can say nothing but great things about our church home in Arkansas. The very small church of about 50 member (including children) collected enough money to pay for four plane tickets. That in itself is amazing, but I would expect nothing less than this from our sweet friends back home. They are so selfless when it comes to giving. I could go on and on about how many times they have come through with giving (every year at Christmas time for the shoe boxes, for Katrina victims, when someones house burns down, for the homeless, and 7-11 donations just to name a few) but there is not enough room on this blog to do so. Church family in Arkansas (you know who you are), I am in tears right now thanking God for you. Your sacrifice is greatly appreciated. We love you more than you know and still pray for you often. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!!!!

The funniest part of this whole thing is that they had my Dad (a deacon/elder) present the tickets to my FIL and he had no idea his name was on one of the tickets. What a great surprise for him too. The Moms knew about it before they were presented the tickets because they both had to ask time off from work ahead of time. The Dads were both soooo surprised and so are we.

Hugs and Kisses to our sweet church family in Arkansas. We LOVE LOVE LOVE you!!

Mommy got picture happy

Be prepared for a TON of pictures!


Mili "kickling" Sadie.


Sadie content for the moment

Just wanted you all to see from this picture that Sadie is already learning her alphabet in sign language. This is the letter E. Look what I can do, Mommy!!

Mili is watching tv and Sadie wants big sis to pay attention to her.

Mili has now convinced Sadie to watch tv as well. The bad influence of big sis has already started or maybe it is the following in her sisters footsteps that has already begun.

Just wanted you all to see Sadie's blue eyes. Mili kept her blue eyes even though Brian and I both have brown eyes but we don't know about Sadie's yet. It would be a hoot if we had another blue eyed child since the odds of it happening is 25%.

Not sure what is on Miss Mili's mind at the time but looks like some heavy thinking to me.

Upon Mili's request the girls are laying side by side. Mili has had a cold so I haven't let her close to Sadie so she is excited to be laying with her lil sis.

I asked them both to look at the camera and we will have to record this. They did it!

Sadie is letting Mili know that she is in her territory (loudly).

Just a cute face!

Mili loves to pat Sadie and tell her she loves her. It is too sweet!

One more of sweet cheeks.

I hope you all enjoyed the picture show. I did get somewhat carried away with the camera but I will be glad I did later in life.

Please scroll down and check out the blog entry with the title "Black and White at it's best". I started on this one several days ago and had to stop (don't know why, I have nothing to do all day) so it saved as a draft and then it posted on the date I saved it before. So don't miss the black and white photos below the "Happenings in the House" post.

Love to All!!

Chilly Mili

The weather has been wonderful today (ok, a tad bit cold for me but Brian is in heaven and as you can tell from the pictures below Mili is enjoying it with Daddy).

Mili is giving me the thumbs up on the weather and on being outside in general.

More thumbs up with a little cross-eyed action.

Daddy and Mili enjoying some good conversation outside.

Mili has now convinced Daddy that it is a thumbs up day!!!

Couldn't post without a picture or two of our sweet Sadie Beth. Sadie LOVES her swing and we LOVE it too (sometimes we love it in the middle of the night when Sadie wants to be awake).

Sadie wore a sweet green outfit (can't tell because the picture is so bright) with a hat. It was very chilly this morning when we went to church.

She was too cute in her little hat but I had to continually tell people she was a girl because she was dressed in green.

A Package from Nanny and Poppy!

We got a package from Nanny and Poppy (Brian's parents) today. As you can see there were some nice clothes in it for our Sadie Beth.

And some cute clothes that Nanny hand made for Mili Bear along with some stickers (thank God because I am running out with all this potty training). A hand written letter from home for Mommy and Daddy. (I have already read it and cried like a baby....I should know how that sounds since I have two now that remind me daily....smile).

Mili LOVES her new "cowboy" hat that Nanny and Poppy sent. She asked me if we could go get her horse and ride on it (as if we have a horse???) Her imagination is running wild these days.

Mili is also enjoying her "lollipop" as she plays (Brian hates they way she says lollipop now, he thinks it is too big girl talk). She was already wearing the yellow shirt when the box arrived today.....just perfect to match the hat.

Mili was proud to model her new clothes. She says, "I boo-tiful Mommy".

Thanks for the things from home. We always love to get a little piece of home when we can.

Miss you all and love you very much!!!

Happenings in the House

This week started with a bang at church. We enjoyed it so much as I mentioned in one of the posts below.

Monday night Brian had a Deacon meeting (yes, I married my father). I grew up in a Deacon/Elder family and now I will be married to one (Brian will be ordained September 30th). Anyway, He came home from work ate dinner and rushed off to church for his meeting. When he arrived home from the meeting he said he was not feeling well and he took his temperature and had fever. We immediately tried to keep him from the babies (a difficult task to do with a 2 year old that would rather be with Daddy than anyone else on the face of the earth).

I was already feeling like a single mom on Monday because Brian was home a short time before going to the meeting and I had already put Mili to bed by the time he returned home. By this time I was pooped from bathing Mili (something I haven't done much of since I fell at 34 weeks pregnant). I am not yet allowed to lift all 28 lbs of Mili so every event is just that an EVENT. I have found ways around every detail in order to take care of my sweet Mili Bear. I drag her step stool/seat from the kitchen to her room for nap time in order to get her to step up onto the top step to then step over into the bed/crib. I have to do the same to get her out of the crib. When I bathe Mili I use her potty chair/step stool to get her over into the bath tub and out of the tub. Mili thinks it is a game and has adjusted well to it. I only have a few more weeks before I can lift her.

Ok, now back to my sweet hubby who is sick. Brian slept in the bedroom and I kept Sadie in the living room with me all night. Brian woke up with a fever on Tuesday morning and went to work anyway (he used all his sick leave to be at home with me after Sadie was born). Brian has been coming home during lunch to watch the girls while I work so I can have at least one good hour of uninterrupted work each day. On Tuesday, he stayed at work during lunch and when he came home he immediately went to the bedroom (his timeout spot, as he called it).

On Wednesday morning Brian was fever free and continued to be that way all day. I have never been so happy to have him back helping me last night. Monday night and Tuesday night alone where enough to make me go insane waking up and feeding Sadie, doing all the feedings during the day with both girls, and baths again. Brian was happy to hold the girls and be back in service last night. We skipped church last night due to the fact that I didn't feel like I could go one more mile without some serious rest. During all this craziness I didn't even have time to take a shower myself so the thought of getting the girls ready for church was not so bad but the thought of getting myself ready for church was beyond what I could do.

Today I am feeling much more rested and Brian is too. We both feel very good and hope that the fever bug will go somewhere else. I have checked both girls periodically for fever and we are ok so far. Mili is happy to be playing with Daddy again and I am very happy for the help. Brian came home at lunch today and I got a shower all by myself with no interruptions. It felt so GOOD.

For any of you single moms out there, I don't know how you do it. All I could think about was my friend Mandy taking care of her three kids while her husband was trying to get a job in the area where they moved (he was still back home at his other job while waiting on a new one). I don't know how anyone does it, even for a short time.

Well that is how our week has gone around here. I am hoping it will get better now. Sadie had a blocked tear duct after she was born and it has cleared up but now the other duct is clogged. Please pray for her to have healthy eyes soon. I am sick of medicating her eyes and cleaning them all the time (as if there is not enough things to take care of on an infant anyway).

Thanks for listening to my "poor me" week. Hope all of you are having great weeks.

Black and White at it's BEST

Thought you all could appreciate black and white at it's best.

Hugs and Kisses from the girls.

Too Cute Not To Post

This is my sweet Mili Bear telling me, "I a peace offsir, Mommy. I keep my friends safe." Take notice of the cell phone in her diaper (pocket as she calls it). I am not sure if it is supposed to be a gun or a phone at this point. After taking this picture, Mili says to me, "I need my hat, Mommy." So we go to pick out the perfect police officer hat. After putting that on she is still not satisfied with her uniform and thinks she needs her boots.


Now the "uniform" is complete (a new pull-up and a serious face). I love when Mili uses her imagination. She is fascinated with fire fighters, police officers, anything with sirens, and she always wants to go fast in the car. She says, "FASTER DADDY, FASTER" from the back seat EVERY time we are in the car. I am a little worried about what she will want to do when she is a teenager with these early signs of thrill seeking. Daddy doesn't help when he feeds the passion by "stepping on it" when taking off from a stop light.....Mili giggling the whole time.


Thanks for reading about our sweet Mili Bear. Did I mention how much I love being at home with my sweet girls. As I type Sadie is screaming so now I am holding her with one hand and typing with the other (She is learning at an early age to fight her sleep). I have waited my whole life to live the life I have right now (minus being so far from family and friends).


I apologize now for any errors on this post since I am rocking Sadie and the laptop is going up and down on my lap....hard to edit that way as well.


Hugs and Kisses from Mili the Police Officer.

MY Story!

As all of you that read often know, Brian told our birth story on the day that we gave birth to our precious Sadie Beth. I said in one of my other entries that I would share MY story at some point. I have not been able to tell or talk about Sadie's arrival without tears in my eyes.

While at church on Sunday I could ONLY think of how very BLESSED we are to have Sadie here. I was holding her and rocking back and forth as we sang praise and worship songs to our Lord and Savior (the one that spared our sweet new daughter's life). I teared up (just as I am now) thinking of how God loves us and cares about every detail of our lives.

On August 25, 2007, I woke with contractions and just as frustrated as any other day. Later Brian arrived home from work at the same time my contractions were close enough to take our trip to the hospital. We rushed around and were out the door in about 30 minutes. We traveled about 30 minutes to drop off Mili at our friend's house. I felt like I needed to go in and discuss Mili's food issues even though I had two pages of typed instructions for Mili. While we were at our friend's house she was shewing me out the door because she didn't want me to have the baby in her house. My contractions were now 3 minutes apart and we were about 30 minutes from the hospital. Brian was driving like a crazy man and I was just sitting back hoping this is really IT. We arrive at the hospital and Brian is honking at a guy that is about to park because he thinks he is suppose to get that parking space since he has the wife in labor. Since we had been to the hospital two times previous to this to stop contractions, you would have thought that they had all the information they needed in the computer, guess again.

After finally getting in a room and being hooked up to monitors, I knew something was not right. The nurses face looked a little worried and I started to ask questions immediately. Brian was incredible calm through the whole process. The nurses started asking for the doctor. I knew that was not standard procedure. When the doctor came in five minutes later (which I also knew was not standard procedure) they all started working on me at one time. All at the same time someone was starting an IV on my left hand, the doctor was breaking my water and placing a heart monitor on Sadie's head, someone was shooting me up with meds to stop the contractions and they put an oxygen mask on me. There was so much going on at the same time that I didn't know what to think.

Everything started looking better and so the nurse was preparing me for a possible c-section by getting me to sign all the necessary paper work. They all left the room. I couldn't keep my eyes off of Sadie's heart monitor. After about five more times of Sadie's heart rate decelerating with each contraction, I told Brian I am ready to do whatever it takes to get her out safely. I was ready to push the call button and then nurses and doctor were back in the room before I knew it. They were there to prepare me for an epidural and talk to me about having a c-section and while the doctor was checking me to see about dilation, Sadie's heart rate flat lined for about a minute. The doctor jumped on the bed with me and started shaking me and turning me from side to side to get Sadie off of her cord. The doctor's face looked very scared and I was as scared as I have ever been. When I looked back up the nurses already had their scrubs on and started unhooking me and giving me more meds to stop the contractions.

The anaesthesiologist began to give me instructions for a spinal (not enough time for an epidural) on the way to the OR. When we arrived in the OR, it was definitely emergency mode. Everyone was running around in the room as I was getting my spinal. My doctor sat at my head and helped me through the spinal, although it didn't hurt maybe because by now my Adrenalin was probably at peak. My doctor then kissed me on the forehead and said, "Sadie will be here soon." From the time I got my spinal until I heard Sadie cry was probably 10 minutes. They already had started before Brian got to the room (not sure if they waited that long to get him or if he took too long trying to get into some extremely small scrubs...read other post). Brian was there to calm me when they pulled Sadie out.

I have never been so happy to hear a cry in all my life. Sadie's cord was wrapped around her arm and her neck. God was so merciful on our family. I have had such guilt about trying to "walk" her out (if you read my other posts about going to the mall to try to get contractions going). I feel like I was just choking her the whole time I was trying to get labor moving. I know that it was not my fault but as a mommy that is all I could think about. It doesn't look like Sadie will have any lasting effects from being "choked" with every contraction (I had a lot of them over a two week period).

We are very happy to have her home and a part of our family. We feel complete now and I don't know what I would do without her. Sadie is amazing and I love her more each day (if that is possible). Well that is my story and I am sticking to it.

Sadie Beth's first Sunday at Church

Sadie Beth had her first Sunday at church (it was not her first trip to church.....that was Wednesday night). She was a good girl minus the occasional grunt (she is a loud sleeper and a loud eater due to her excessive grunting). I hope she will grow out of some of that soon.

The cute blue outfit is from my best friend Dani Lee. She gave it to me in May when I went home to Arkansas for a visit. When I tried it on her on Sunday morning, I couldn't believe it fit her (Sadie now weighs 7lbs 7 oz). Hope you enjoy the pictures of us with Sadie. We didn't plan the blue theme (Mili wore pink on Sunday, she was asleep when we took these pics).

It was sooooo good to be back in church Sunday. We have really missed that connection with God. The praise and worship was fantastic and 5 people came to the front for baptism (4 of those 5 recently asked Jesus to live in their heart forever and chose to follow Him). One of the couples that accepted Christ this last week were mine and Brian's family to connect with through Connections Team. We have prayed for them all summer hoping to get this outcome. We knew they didn't know Jesus and are now glad they are in the family of God. PRAISE GOD for a great day in His house.

Please pray for my friend Hazel and her family as they have a funeral for her mother today. Thank God her mother was a believer and is with Jesus now. She was a sweet, sweet lady who always put a smile on my face.

Hugs and Kisses to ALL!!!