Happy 3rd Birthday Braelyn!

Surely it cannot have been 3 whole years since my baby girl was born! Oh my goodness where does the time go?? Three years ago today I had been in the hospital for almost 5 days waiting to find out if unborn baby Braelyn was going to be okay. I went into early labor at 33.3 weeks & they put a hault to her entrance for a few days to give her the steroids for her lungs to finish developing. Once they determined that everything looked good, they took me off of the meds & let Braelyn Alexis make her grand entrance! At 6 weeks early & weighing in at 5 lbs. 13 oz., she would have been a big full term baby like her sister! She still looked so tiny to us! After a brief 5 day stay in the NICU, Braelyn was able to come home. She has been such a blessing to our family and she is loved SO much! Brinley loves Braelyn (most of the time) and it is funny how the girls have such different personalities. We love them both very much and are very thankful for both of them!! Happy 3rd Birthday Braelyn!! Here are a few pics from her day & a short video...



yesterday she wore her "birthday princess" shirt and James took her to breakfast & I took her to Starbucks for her whipped cream in a cup! (notice what they wrote on her cup!)

A quick trip back to Memphis

In order to keep this in chronological order, I am going to do 2 posts today. I never got around to this week's post, so first things first. (trying to do this while watching football so hopefully this makes sense!)

The girls & I decided to ride back to Memphis with Mimi after she stayed last week for our Greenbrier trip. We left Friday afternoon & were going to rent a car to drive back Sunday. Quick trip, I know! Braelyn started coughing during the night Friday after we got there & it continued somewhat throughout the day while we were at the fair with Mimi, Ashley & Danny. The fair was definitely a hit! The girls had a blast!






Later we were going to meet with my family at Chili's (which turned out to be a Free meal b/c they were HORRIBLE).

Braelyn's cough was steadily getting a little worse and her breathing was starting to get bad too. (notice how she is holding her chest above) After 3 hours at Chili's (I told you it was free!), I headed to get the girls in bed. The girls were down for the night after a little medicine for coughs, etc. I left to get the rental car for the drive the next morning. Finally back around midnight, I was ready to get some rest since I had to drive back with the girls by myself the next day. Braelyn was extremely restless and was obviously having trouble breathing well. She tossed & turned & got up 3 times within 3 hours to go to the bathroom. She & I both were doing anything & everything to get her comfortable. Finally around 3 am or so, I woke Mimi up to get her opinion although I had pretty much decided I didn't think she could make it until the morning without a breathing treatment. (note: we have one of these machines at home, but haven't used it in 4 months!) Around 3:45 am we were off to the ER (2nd time in 2 weeks!). They sent us to a room pretty quickly because they could tell she was really laboring to breath. The actual breathing treatment lasted almost 90 minutes! Whew! We were tired, but Braelyn just wanted to keep flipping channels. I SO could have nodded off if I wasn't afraid she would fall off the bed or take the mask off! Around 8:30 or 9, we were done. After a short nap for Braelyn & myself, we made a trip to get the inhaler & steroid Rx filled. Then, we were getting on the road. We were done with our quick (less than 48 hours) trip. I don't know how many more "exciting" weekends I can take!!

A Trip to The Greenbrier

James recently won a trip at work to a place called The Greenbrier. The Who?? We had never heard of it. We looked it up online of course . It looked pretty nice & had some cool things to do as well. So, James' mom came up to keep the girls and we were off for our 4 day getaway. As we arrived, we were already impressed. Nestled in the hills of White Sulphur Springs WV, this place is absolutely beautiful. Bellmen were waiting right there to grab the bags & check-in was a breeze. (We were in our room in less than 20 minutes of pulling in the driveway.) The minute we pulled into the circular drive, walked through the doors & looked around, you felt as if you were stepping back in time for a minute. The decor looked as if it had hardly been touched in 50+ years, but was exquisite. I couldn't wait to see our room. Wow! The room was covered in flowered wallpaper, but the colors were beautiful & it only took a minute to be sucked in & want to stay a while!

We received our packet of what activities we had planned, but basically the next few days were filled with free time for the two of us. Monday we did the bunker tour. How amazing to see a place that was top secret and would have been used for our US Congress in the event of nuclear war. For our activity day James planned golf with the guys he use to work with in Memphis & I was off to the spa for a much needed massage, etc. We had breakfast, lunch & dinner at some really nice places which served a wide range of food choices. I mean even James was able to find things to eat! lol There was a bowling alley, movie theater, afternoon tea, shopping, fishing and much more. Needless to say, we did not even leave the resort until we checked out. We had a great time. I am grateful that the company decided to make this an intimate trip with only about 15 or so employees winning the trip. It was nice when we ate dinner with them because I met several new people & it was a small enough group that most everyone connected up at some point.
I would highly recommend The Greenbrier. You may want to save a small fortune first since everything was pricey, but in the long run, it would be well worth the trip. The heritage rich and history filled resort is at the top of my list for best vacations I have taken. I would love to go back in the next few years. Here are a few more pics...

Life is So Precious, our lives can change in an instant

This is gonna be long one...
Where do I even begin??? What an emotionally exhausting day. First, as a little side note, Braelyn got a few minor cat scratches on her face this morning. That will explain the band-aids you see in the pictures in a few moments.
Today, James & I decided to try and get through the remaining boxes & bins in the garage while the girls were upstairs coloring. We were out there for 10 minutes at the most when we hear Brinley call down the stairs in her tattling voice, "Daddy". I told James she was calling him, but he'd already heard her so he was headed back inside when she yells it outloud again & again, "Daddy!!". They meet up in the hall & I can hear her explaining that Braelyn climbed into something. This certainly wouldn't be the first time. I believe the kid is part monkey. Then as they are disappearing upstairs I can faintly hear Brinley explaining that Braelyn was stuck so I figured I better go check it out also. I am headed toward the stairs & James yells down, "Kalley, blah, blah, blah". I don't even remember what he said because the terror in his voice said enough & then I heard the faintest sound of Braelyn "trying" to cry for help.... My heart sank.... It felt like it took me 5 minutes to top the stairs & get to her. Braelyn's head was stuck in the bottom drawer of an armoire/hutch. All I could see was her little body from the shoulders down! We couldn't see her head or how to get it out! James was scrambling to find some way to get her out & I am trying to keep her calm because all I can hear is some wheezing sound coming out of my baby. She was choking & it appeared there wasn't an easy solution to getting her out. James tried pulling the back off, but that was taking too long & I started to panic. "James, you have GOT to hurry up, she can't breathe!" She would kick one foot or throw her arm up, which to me seemed as if she was losing air too fast & she was convulsing. James then tried to pull the drawer above out and I was terrified because we cannot see her head at all. He slowly & safely got it out! This all probably took less than 30 seconds, but seemed like 30 minutes. At that point I am thanking God that I can see my baby & hear her cry!! The sweetest sound after such a frightening incident. Her face was red, blue, purple & a little swollen. The breathing trouble concerned me since we think she has a touch of asthma. I was trying to cool her off by blowing on her forehead while checking her out a little. Her breathing was still a little erratic, but I noticed she had lots of little blue speckles all over her face & neck. I assumed that it was from her losing oxygen, which just concerned me more. Who knows how much longer would have been "too long", it sends chills up my spine just thinking about it. Bless her heart, all she wanted to do was cling to my neck & lay her head down & trying to keep her awake was a priority since I had no idea what was going on with her. I called 911 to see if they could tell me anything, but the lady suggested an ambulance so I told her we would just drive her ourselves. We were all in the car & headed to the ER within 5 minutes of all of this happening. We got there & fortuantely her breathing was pretty normal by this point & they had us in a room in about 20 minutes. Everything checked out okay! Her oxygen was 100%, temp fine, etc, but they went ahead & put her in a room to be checked by a doctor. He said everything looked fine & the blue speckles would disappear soon. They just want her to have a check-up in about a week. What a relief!!
So, "what happened?" you ask? Apparently the girls thought it would be a good idea to use the rather large drawer for a "play bed". Braelyn even had a pillow & blanket in there with her. Obviously Brinley closed the drawer & it frightened Braelyn so she wanted out. She probably got scared & tried to help get herself out as Brinley was pulling. Basically, her head & neck were trapped after she tried to sit up as the drawer was moving and she was being choked. The whole problem was that we couldn't see anything to know how it happened much less how to get her out. We didn't want to pull or push the wrong way & make it worse since she couldn't talk to let us know. And as she was laying there being choked all I could think was 'please God do not let this be the last time we see this sweet baby'! Well apparently God watched over Braelyn today & for that we are so grateful!!

Kiss your babies & tell them you love them!

These are few pictures I got about 2 hours after the accident so a lot of the swelling was down and the "blue freckles" had started to fade...

pic of one eye...


another eye pic...


chin & neck shot...


I asked her to close her eyes...


what was left of it behind the ear...


pushing her eye closed for me so you can see more "blue freckles"...


you can kind of see the red mark where she was being choked...


The best part of my day, Smiles for Mommy! We are so glad you okay baby Brae! (notice the cat scratch band-aids & her eyes are still a little swollen)

Labor Day Weekend, Buses & Boy"Friends"

Well, Labor Day weekend was relaxing & fun-filled. My family came up & brought our dog Taffy with them because we haven't had her since we lived here. The girls were excited to see Grammy, Grampy, Jill & Taffy. If I can load the video of the dog & cat meeting over the weekend I will! Funny stuff. They are becoming good friends already! Then on Labor Day, the Vols played their 1st game so we had to be decked out in orange even if they did let us down later that night. The pictures are still cute, right?? The girls loved their Power T tattoos...



this one is one of my favorites of Braelyn & Daddy...



here's Grampy, Grammy and Jill...





Now on to Buses & "Boyfriends"!

Maybe we have determined our own fate, but we have long said that Brinley was going to be a flirt and a bit of a handful when she got older. She is already fascinated with one of the little boys in our neighborhood & he actually started Kindergarten this year also. She comes home & tells me that she saw him that day at lunch or the playground. I remember "liking" boys in my class at her age too, but it eventually went away for awhile, so hopefully this will pass us by for at least 10 years or so. (crosses fingers)
Well, she has been begging & begging to ride the bus since before we even moved to Knoxville! I really like taking her to school in the morning because it still makes me feel like she is my little girl & the bus just "seems" so much older! The little boy also rides the bus so I decided to give in, reluctantly, and let her try it out.

waiting in the truck for the bus come...



she opened the door, me=confused, she said "I want you to take my picture" (look at her, she is killing me!)



then the bus came & she Took Off!!



and so, she Loved it. So I guess my baby grew up a little more again today...