Home Sweet Home!

I am so excited to have a weekend at home. I have been in my PJ's all weekend and I love it! Friday night, we went to Mi Tierra Restaurant for supper with David, Shauna, Brayden and Cayden Stout. Then we went back home and played some Rock Band with our Stage Kit. Oh yeah! We rocked the house! Saturday, I woke up with the baby and we laid around early in the morning and then I scrubbed and cleaned our bathroom. (A job that was OVERDUE!) I made Biscuits and Gravy for Stu and then I laid around a little more and watched the rain, sleet and snow come down. Really exciting, I know but it was nice. I did laundry and then realized that I had left about 6 important things off my grocery list, so I ventured out to Wal-Mart in the nasty weather and hurried home. Lyric is really close to sitting unassisted. She can sit while supported in her Boppy pillow and she gets so tickled by it that she falls backwards. We played with her Pretty Learning Purse and her round Chicken. This morning, (Sunday) I fixed waffles and have been spending a lot of time on the couch with Lyric. It's just a low key, relaxing weekend. Don't get me wrong though, I love going to Wichita to sing and go to Gracepoint CC but it is nice every once and a while to take time to stay home and relax. I've had a lot of tests and stress this last week and I needed this. I just glanced over and saw that Lyric is sleeping in her Boppy so I think I will scoop her up and we will go take a little snooze......zzzzzzzzzz

Hope you had a wonderful birthday Uncle Jason! March 18th We went up to Wichita the weekend of March 13th for Grandma Sheila's birthday. We went to Sedgwick to Hoof & Horn for dinner. We went back to Sheila and Stacey's for dessert. They made a delicious Lemon Cake! Yummy St Patricks day was fun. Lyric was at work that day and charmed everyone with her adorable shamrock outfit complete with feather headband (courtesy of Grandma Sheila and Aunt Stacey!) She actually liked it! We stayed at Steve and Donna's on Saturday and went to church on Sunday. All this running around sure makes a girl tired! I just wanted to curl up next to her and take a snooze.

This is what you get for making your wife drive home! HA HA!

We went to Wichita again this last weekend. Sunday was a truly joyful experience and I truly needed it! I need to start having the family take pictures while we are at church. Sheila came to the 2nd experience and then we went to lunch at Taco Grande. It was scrumptous. Grammy, Lyric and I headed back home and stopped in Fredonia to see Great Aunt Patty's art show and visit with she and Great Uncle Harley. Grammy has pictures and I will post those soon.

Lyric has started eating baby food in addition to her bottle. I started her on squash and applesauce. She has also tried Sweet Potatoes, Carrots, Sweet Peas, Bananas and soon we will try peaches. Yummy. She is doing really well with it so far. She started foods around 4 months and I just gave her 1 serving (1/2 jar) of applesauce a day for a few weeks to get her used to the idea of eating with a spoon. She didn't like the idea at first and now look at her! I think her favorite so far is bananas and sweet peas. Last night, (3/25) she had a mouthful of peas and decided to make a motor boat sound with her mouth and Mommy wore the peas! She's so funny!Lyric eating squash.

Taking time to blog

Wow, I am not doing well at this blogging thing. Lets see, last week Mom, Lyric and I went up to Wichita on Saturday for a girls weekend. We helped Mom do some work at the office and then we did a little shopping. I found some wallpaper for my office so I will hopefully get that done soon. We called it an early evening and got in our PJ's and watched movies while eating some take out DeFazios. Yummy! Lyric has a tough time sleeping when she is not in her own bed. I had her laying sideways on the bed with me and every once in a while I would get a little foot in my back. She's so sweet though. She couldn't help it. Sunday morning we got up and went to the first Sunday at Gracepoint CC. I talked about that earlier, I think. It was awesome. David, Shauna, Brayden and Cayden were there and we met up with them after the experience and ran into Grandma Sheila. We were so thrilled to see her. She got to see Lyric and couldn't believe how much she has grown. After church, we went to PF Changs- Yum Yum. Cayden was quite the flirt with the waitresses and was very entertaining. After lunch, Grammy, David, Lyric and the boys went home to Grammy and Papa's for the evening and Shauna and I stayed in Wichita to do a little more shopping. We had a blast! This last week has been very busy and stressful. I am having to do a lot of work rewriting policies and personal insurance reviews. Jason was nice enough to come in during a 2 week break at his job to help re-inspect my homes and farms to help move us along faster. Thanks Jason! Couldn't do it without you. I promise to become a better blogger. Wow, say that 3 times fast....

On the road again....

Thursday I went up to Wichita, with Lyric in tow, and attended my 1st quarter district meeting at my manager office. I drove out to Goddard to drop off the baby with her Great Grandma and Great Grandpa Hopper. Thank you both sooooo much for taking such great care of Lyric ALL DAY! After my meeting, they said they didn't mind watching her until I was done with my band practice. I was able to run some errands and do a little shopping before and then had a blast at practice. I have truly missed going to it every Thursday since we moved. I love all my Edge of Grace people! After practice I went back out to Goddard and picked up the baby and went over to see Shelley. Don, Shelley and Izzy got to see Lyric for a little while and we were entertained by sweet Isabelle! What a doll! Thank you guys for letting us come by for a while. Like a crazy woman, I decided to drive home at 10 o'clock that night! We made it home just fine though.Friday was a regular day at work, Lyric stayed with Daddy while I worked. Our friends John and Alli came down from Wichita for the weekend. We went to John's Kitchen & Pub for dinner and then to our house to play some Rock Band. On Saturday, we got up and took them on a tour of Independence (which I am sure the really enjoyed ;-) . We had lunch at Stoney B's and then went home and relaxed for a while. Later I fixed chili and we watched "The Big Lebowski". It's a great movie.

I woke up EARLY on Sunday morning and Lyric and I drove back to Wichita for church. We had 1 service and there was a huge announcement. Gracepoint United Methodist Church was changing to Gracepoint Community Church. Bryson had decided that we needed to take a different direction with Gracepoint and stepped down from the Methodist Conference. That was a huge and scary decision for him and we will keep him and his family in our prayers as Satan will be attacking him during this time. We are so excited about the future of Gracepoint. Check our our new website at www.gracepointchurch.tv. We sang some great songs and I got to sing "Bring Me To Life" by Evanescence which is so much fun. PC and his crew came in and performed "Lose Yourself" by Eminem and "Jesus Freak" by DC Talk. They are incredible. A big thank you to Steve and Donna (Grandma and Grandpa Goodwin) and Brent for coming to church. We loved seeing you and hope to see you at Gracepoint again really soon! After church, we went over to Steve and Donna's for lunch and visited for a while. Since the holidays, they had not had a chance to see Lyric. My has she grown! I can't believe it. She is 4 months old! Time really flies. We had a great visit and then headed back to good Ol' Southeast Kansas.

I pray that during this difficult time, we all can keep the faith and remember that God never gives us anything we can't handle.

Love,

Jamie

No News is Good News!

Well, things have been pretty boring this week. Lyric, of course, is a never ending source of entertainment. It's so wonderful to wake up each morning and hear her talking to her hands. The only time she really fusses is when she is fighting a nap or REALLY hungry. If the latter is the problem, you'd better hussle. I am trying to introduce her to rice cereal and a spoon but she doesn't want any part of it. Frankly, she gets ticked! I just give up after a little while. My mom even gave me a hint of adding just a little sugar to it. I can't believe the difference from when I was a baby to now. I was on rice cereal at 2 weeks and on fruits and veggies by 6 weeks. I don't have any allergies and I am rarely sick. Maybe that is the secret! I need to find out if this "I hate being spoon-fed" thing is a phase or if I am doing something wrong. We go to a family doctor right now and I would really like to at least try a pediatrician one time to make sure we are on the right track. She goes to her current doctor on the 25th so we will see what he says.

Lyric loves mirrors and watching herself. It's a riot. Before her bath, I set her in front of the mirror and she gets so tickled at herself that she starts giggling and laughing. How cute! I will have to capture it on film and pictures soon. I am bad at that.

Stu and Lyric still spend Fridays together and both seem to truly love it. He gets to have some alone time to bond with his little girl and I think that is so important.

Grammy (my mom) watches her on Mondays, Thursdays, and sometimes Fridays (if Stu has to work) at her house in Longton, and we take her to work on Tuesdays and Wednesdays which is fun and exhausting at the same time. Lyric gets pretty tired too. Well, that's all for today. I have completely filled up my memory card on my camera so I need to get the pictures cleared off and start taking more pictures. Bye for now.

Happy Valentines Day! - LATE! I am going to have to get better at this. I hope you all had a wonderful holiday filled with love and maybe some chocolate! Stu, Lyric and I went to Long John Silvers in Coffeyville with our friends Jed and Ami. Lyric cried halfway there and then almost the entire way back. They may never go anywhere with us again. On Saturday, we were lazy for most of the day and then I finally got a list together and went to the store. Lyric and I met Stu at El Pueblito's for our valentine dinner. We went home and Stu had gotten us a dozen roses, 11 for me and 1 for Lyric. He made a promise when we first started dating that he would always get me flowers on our anniversary and valentines. How sweet! I got him a card and made him suffer through "Sex and the City" the movie. I don't think he minded too badly. Yesterday I worked and worked and worked on organizing my closet and got rid of about 5 bags of clothes that no longer fit. I can't believe I got it finished! I am so proud! Shelley, you're going to get back your maternity clothes soon, I promise. We had a pretty low key Valentine's this year. Lyric is growing so fast and we love when she "talks" to us and she now laughs and giggles. What a sweet little girl. We are so lucky. Here are some of my favorite pictures so far.

The Arrival of Lyric Brianne!

In February of 2009, Stu and I found out we were expecting our first child. We were ECSTATIC! We had been trying for a little while and were so lucky to be pregnant. It was a great pregnancy overall. Not a lot of complications and just a bit of morning sickness. I changed doctors in the middle of my pregnancy for convenience. We were so nervous about making a 2 hour trip to Wichita when the time came so we found someone local. She was great. I did start having a lot of heart burn during my 2nd and especially my 3rd trimester and Tums became my best friend. I craved Chili Cheese dogs, fruit and veggies, and Caramello candy bars. I loved the little kicks and nudges and couldn't wait for our baby to get here. We got several ultrasounds and the baby never flipped over so we were never 100% on the gender of the baby until very close to the end but we thought it was most likely a girl. At about 22-23 weeks, I was having some hip and back pain so I did go into the hospital to be monitored for a couple of hours and everything turned out okay.

The rest of my pregnancy went well and we had 3-4 ultrasounds and could never really 100% find out the gender of the baby. My doctor kept telling us that the baby had not turned yet, but still had time. Finally, at 37 weeks, I had my final ultrasound and the baby had still not turned so we scheduled a Cesarian Section for October 23rd, 2008 at 3:15pm. I was on a rollar coaster of emotions the day before. The fears and worries of being a mommy, the fear of the c-section and anesthesia and recovery. The sadness of the end of my pregnancy and the excitement of being a mommy and starting this new adventure with our beautiful child. I cried more that week than I felt I ever had in my life. Stu was such a rock for me and he reassured me that everything was going to go great and we would be taking home our sweet little baby soon. We checked in to the hospital around noon on the 23rd and got settled in our room. I changed into my gown and laid in bed. It was the middle of Neewollah and we were closing the office early that day. My mom and dad and Stu's dad and step-mom came to sit with us and await the arrival of their grandchild. The nurses were wonderful and walked us through the process and performed tests and got me all set up (with a few hiccups along the way, man I hate catheters!). We found out that a woman down the hall from us had been in labor and was having complications and they were going to give my spot to her for an emergency c-section. While they were transporting her to the operating room, they encountered some bumps and caused her to have the baby basically in the hallway. What an exciting day at Independence Mercy Hospital. We did discover later that it was Julie Staab, she and her husband were in our Prepared Childbirth class earlier. So our babies have the same birthday. Recovery was slow but I am so thankful for our sweet little girl. I won't carry on anymore in this post.

More later!