doing school work

Clay came out playing with a lens yesterday, and I didn't even know he took these...I just noticed them on the computer. This is us in true form doing schoolwork!

Great news!

The last time we went to the pediatrician, they detected a heart mumur in Rachel. I was freaked b/c they had 3 docs come in and listen to her heart for a really long time, and then tell me they were referring me to a cardiologist. They kept asking me if anyone had ever heard it before, and I said no, so I was worried that it was worse than they were letting on.

Yesterday was our appointment, and they did an EKG, and it looked normal, and they diagnosed her with an innocent heart murmur. Thank goodness. They said that it is fine, just an abnormal beat, and there is nothing to worry about. We are so relieved! She was such a brave trooper there! It has probaby been 2 yrs since I had to take her to the doc, and she used to scream back then, which they think is probaby why nobody has heart it before now. The cardiologist said yesterday that it usually depends on how cooperative the patient is...so that explains it right there!

I told me to show me her stickers! She was proud of them.
She and I enjoyed a treat of going out to eat just the 2 of us to Taco Bueno. She was being her usual nutty self...

I Lv Moom I lv omomo

We discovered a several months back that Noah had been writing on his bunkbed...his bunkbed that we have only owned a year. We got on to him, asked him what he was thinking, and why, not to do it again...all that good stuff. I can't remember what he had written, we took it off with a magic eraser...and it did leave some spots where we took it off.

A few months after that discovery, when I was tucking him in one night, I discovered this, on the underneath part of his bed....that he had written one night in bed. He said he had done it back when he did the other stuff....but even at that...how could you get mad at that??? He had written this back when he didn't know how to write this on his own, but was just trying to figure it all out. This is not going to be removed with the magic eraser....it is now a tatoo for his furniture!

Beautiful flowers

I am so excited to be living in a house that has flowers in the spring! When we lived in Monticello (for only one year) we had 2 flowers total grow I think, and never anything that wasn't wild in Warren. I attempted to plant Gerber Daisies one year, and they died pretty quick. SO, I am loving all these flowers in our yard! And look...we have a pet lizard....and it has a mate/playmate..(haven't figured that one out yet) They are so cute! Whenever I was watering my flowers yesterday, they just stayed still and let me water them too....I think they liked it!

Remember the mix of flowers I got....unknowing what color they would be?? Well here they are! The kids and I have both enjoyed seeing each time a new one had opened up to see what color they are!


Look...we have ROSES!

And now......Rachel!

Again, I was induced, and again, I had Rachel about the same time of night as the other 2! Only this time, labor was so simple...I can remember sitting there watching Dr. Phil talking about how hungry I was! (the only bad part, I had a reaction to the medicine and I was throwing up during the last part of labor and after she was born). Bradley Co hospital had finally finished their new birthing suits, so I finally got to stay in style!

Rachel was born Sept 2, and Noah had just turned 2 July 27th, so he was just a little over 2 yrs and 1 month old. Leah was 15 months old.

Rachel added our 3rd child in diapers, 3rd one on a bottle (I broke all of them at the same time from the bottle when Rach was 6 months) 3rd baby bed....3rd child in one room (we had a 2 bedroom house) and 3rd car seat....a good thing we bought that mini van after Leah was born! And yes, I felt like a crazy loon at the time....and no, I wouldn't change not one single thing. I love my family so much, and I am so glad that God saw in his plan for us to have our children the way we did. And if I could go back and do it all over again....I would, with the knowledge I have now, and let myself enjoy it! We were in survival mode back then!

Leah seeing sis for the first time! (And Thank you to my sis for taking all these pics with my camera!)
This photo to me is priceless!!! It has my mom holding Noah, who is pointing at Rachel that my mother in law is holding...and my dad peeking over...and that is SO him!

Leah enters our family...

This is a pic of Clay carrying Leah out of the delivery room...the next photo after that was them wheeling me out on the bed...(I thought I had taken a pic of that one too) I am glad my mom was standing there ready to take pics of that!

I think Noah was fascinated by all that hair too! My sister is holding Leah.

And then, along came another one....

This is taken of me right before I left for the hospital to have Leah. Look at my great little baby seat for when I held him! Ha Ha I like this pic....b/c it reminds me just how small he was whenever Leah was born. That time if my life is such a blur...and he seemed older to me at the time...until I see other baby's that are 10 months old, and I comment to their moms....that is how old my oldest was, whenever my second was born. And I ususally get some very wide eyed looks! I think he was 10 months, and 1 week old. (I did have her a week early) He had just started walking the week before.

I was scheduled to be induced again, b/c doc was going out of town. I went to the hospital at 8:00 am and they sent me back home b/c all the hospital rooms were full! Oh, that was not fun....I was so anxious, and ready to get her out of me! I had tremendous anxiety the whole time I was pregnant with her about the childbirth....I had not had enough time to get over my first experience yet! It went much better this time though, and I didn't have the back labor...all my labor was in my stomach that time, and not nearly as painful. She arrived around 9:20 pm. as well, (I can't remember the exact time, shame on me)

Our first family photo!!

It was a long day! I went to the hospital the night before with contractions, but they said they weren't strong enough and sent me back home. At 7:00 that morning, Dr. Pennington called me and said..."Are you ready to have this baby!" So, by 8:00 I was at the hospital, they broke my water, and started me on the drip. It was a LONG day, with horrible back labor pains that went on all day long. I remember crying saying, "why didn't anyone tell me HOW bad this hurts?" What I didn't know until the next day, the Doc had the ER prepped that day b/c he thought I would end up with a C-section. But, it all worked out, and Noah Dylan was born at 9:29 pm. He peed on the doctor when he came out. And when they got me settled back into my room, he came in with the highest pitch little squeal I have ever heard on a baby. My mother in law took this picture, and I am so GLAD! And I love that the photo has the date in the bottom corner....his birthday.

Family photo

My mom took this family photo of us just a couple of weeks before Rachel was born. This is the only photo I have of us as a family of 4.

Could 2 siblings look more different?

I have been going through old pics again...this time the ones on film. I have another shot similar to this one somewhere that is my favorite.

In this picture, Noah is about 11 months old, and Leah is less than a month. When I was pregnant with her, I didn't know what I was having until about 3 weeks from delivery. As I pictured my new baby, boy or girl, I pictured it looking much like Noah. He was born with light blond hair, and not much of it. Boy, were we in for a shock when this baby with a head FULL of black hair was born!! I love this picture b/c is shows how different the 2 looked. And even still, I don't really think they favor. I said all the while I was pregnant with Rachel she would be the missing link...and she is, she favors both of them I think.

Too Pooped to Scoop??

Check this out.... http://www.doodieking.com/ They left a flyer on our door today....that is just pitiful! But, I wish them luck with their business!

All is quiet

Clay has taken the kids fishing.....I think this is the first moment I have had alone without my family in a month! Ahhh so peaceful, and you see how I am spending my time, BLOGGING!

Ride on the Ferry

This is our ferry coming in to port before we got on it.

This is in our van, on the boat. (I think they were more excited that they could just get up and move around the van without having to be in a seatbelt!


They also have a bird sanctuary between there and Gulf Shores that I wish we had taken the time to go to.

more from Dauphin Island

As I said before, this was our favorite part of the trip! It was so peaceful and quiet there, and beautiful!

This was the bridge that we crossed leading to Dauphin Island.

This was a playground down by the water with and old boat, buoy, fishing nets, and sand.
Look, I caught me a really cute fish!

I took a pic of the sign b/c I knew I would remember anything about the Fort after we left. It was so cool, I wish we had of had time to tour it. We will plan it for next time.
This is a part of a ship that was washed up during a hurricane in 1998. It came to shore and went right through someone's house. They believe it was built in the 1800's.
I like the rocks along the shorline, this is where I wanted to take our family pic, but we didn't make it back over there.
Along the boardwalk are all these tiles of the different sea life.
They also have a museum of sea life. We just walked into the entrance to check it out, and I snapped this pic of the skeleton of a bottlenose dolphin. It is perfect to go with our study we just did of dolphins in school before we left.
This is outside the Fort.



A shrimping boat we were fascinated by.

On the way to the beach

I finally got all my pictures together and on to this computer, so here we go. These were on the way down there....you know, I get bored in the car, so I just take pictures of anything.

The girls wearing our sunglasses

Yes, Noah is back there somewhere in all our stuff! We truly would not have had room for another kid!
You can see me in the reflection of her glasses.
We saw Richard and Kyle Petty's race car big truck on the way....I am not into race cars, but it was still exciting. Clay said that is where the movie Cars got the Dinoco blue from, so Noah was excited about that.
Bridges.....pretty, but I sure hate them!

Road signs and water towers are good ways to document where you are going/have been.
had to stop off at Walmart along the way of course.
Yum!! This was at our continental breakfast when we stopped of for the night on the way down there. They had a very good breakfast bar!