The Cathey Family

We're Moving!!!

2010-06-01T21:43:00.002-05:00

We just found out that we will be moving to Washington, DC !!! Actually we'll get housing at Ft. Belvoir, VA which is just outside the beltway but still close enough to call DC. What's even more amazing is that we have a few friends who are moving not to far from where we'll be. The Hubbards are moving to Bethesda, and the Tenbergs are moving to Baltimore. Yeah!!

The crazy thing is that we had thought about moving up there sometime in 5-7 yrs. But the Good Lord had other plans. He has planned for us to be there at the end of July. Jerry reports August 1st. So 2 months from now we will be in our new home in Ft. Belvoir, VA.
What make it easier is that we already have renters for our home here in Little Rock. So we don't have to worry about getting our house on the market and losing money and all that hassle. We don't even have to pack. The movers do it for us. But we still have to prepare to downsize really organize the things we want to take with us. Being that we have a 3yr old and a 1yr old the less stress to deal with , the better.
We will keep everyone updated and now that we are going to live some place exciting, I will have so much to blog about. We are an adventurous family , so a move like this is going to be great!

Finally a new post!!! Yipeee!

2009-04-20T18:57:00.002-05:00

I'm finally getting around to blogging again. The problem is that I spend much more time on Facebook than I do here because it's easier to post a line or two and comment on friends statuses or chat with them (even when they live right across the street, right Jess?).

So without further ado, here are the Cathey family updates!

Jerry, is going to be baptised Sunday evening at 7:15 pm. I'm so proud of him and his decision to do this. What this means for our family is that we will have a faithful, Christ- loving, Priesthood holding , leader in our home. It also means that we can prepare to go the Temple together as a family and be sealed for eternity as husband and wife with our children.

We also just finished "A Weekend to Remember". It's a Family Life event that was held at the Peabody hote. It's purpose is to strengthen marriages using God's plan for our families. It's a non- denominational Christian message and we both learned so much about ourselves, eachother, and how to keep our marriage thriving. I would recommend every couple go to an event. No matter where you are at in your marriage, whether you are engaged, married with children, empty nesters, remarried, on the brink of divorce, or still honeymooning. There is something for everyone. You will learn so much. My next step is to finish reading " Drawing Heaven in to Your Marriage" by H. Wallace Goddard and share that with my family and friends as well.

Emily is getting more and more excited about being a big sister these days. She seems to think everyone's belly has a Chloe in it. She is also so much more talkative as well. Forget new words, she speaks in sentences now. She says Hi to everyone she meets and is so loving when she's not having a tantrum. She has grown a lot too over the last several weeks. She's in a 2T, wearing size 5 shoes. She eats like a little piglett too. Of course she runs it off at the park so I'm not worried about her being over weight or anything. Her blond hair is curlier than ever now too. She is also growing in her independence. She likes to drink out of a big girl cup, sleep in her big girl bed and climb onto the big girl chairs. She also likes to go shopping for big girl shoes. I wonder where she got that from???

Now for pregnancy updates. As of today, I've gained 24 lbs, and measure for 32 weeks. Being 32 weeks that is pretty much perfect. The gestational diabetes kept under control with diet and exercise, but I had to add medication at night so that my fasting blood sugars would be under 90 in the morning. Chloe moves really well and is quite the little kicker. I love to sit and watch my belly move. One thing I have realized since this weekend, is that I haven't thank the Lord for her and her health so I have since remedied that. It's really hard to be grateful for a healthy pregnancy when you are pretty much sick most of the time, but despite my sickness, Chloe is healthy and growing. I should be grateful for even just being pregnant with her. What a blessing this is in my life.
Now if I could just the Z -Pak to kick in and take care of this sinus infection......

God bless you all.

2009-03-17T13:32:00.004-05:00

So far life with gestational diabetes isn't too bad. There are some major incoveniences like having to make time to prick my fingers four times a day which by the way is painful (and now I have a lot more respect for those who have diabetes and have to do this everyday for the rest of thier lives). But the meal plan is pretty reasonable. And as long as Chloe's health is involved I will follow the plan 150%. Chloe,by the way, is just as active as her sister was before she was born. I can't believe she is going to be here in about 3 mo. We aren't even remotely ready yet either. We have some diapers and clothes, but we haven't moved Emily to a toddler bed, and the furniture still needs to be moved into her room. I also have yet to find crib bedding that I like. We also need to get a new carseat and extra base because the other travel system was not compatible with the new double stroller, so we sold it to a friend. This list goes on.......

Emily and I can't wait for the warmer weather. That means more park days. We would've have gone to the park today but Emily wasn't cooperating at nap time. At 2pm she was still awake playing in her crib. She usually goes down around 12:30 and gets up by 3 0r 3:30. It's 4 now so I will give her 30 more minutes and then get her up so she will go down for bedtime at 8pm.

I imagine that when we bring Chloe home our routine will all but dissapear for the first couple of weeks so I'm glad Jerry will be home. My mom plans to help out a little too. But I'm not going to stress out over it now. I still have three months to prepare for it.

2009-03-12T21:26:00.002-05:00

Well I had a bummer of a day today. Actually it started last week on Tuesday at my ob appointment. I had to do that glucose tolerance test. Yucky. The results were not good. My levels were too high and I was anemic so I had to retest today. Three days earlier, I had to start a carb fest. Then I fasted from 8:30 pm last night to 8:30am. I got to the lab, the drew blood. My blood sugar was fine, but when the gave the glucose drink again and drew blood an hour and 2 hours later, my blood sugar levels were once again too high. So needless to say, I've been diagnosed with gestational diabetes.

On a lighter note,Emily had a fun play date with her friend Isabelle today. They had a lot of fun according to my friend Lisa (Isabelle's mom). They listened to music and watched Elmo and of course played with their toys. Both girls are so cute together. They look so much alike. They both have blond curly hair and blue eyes and are about the same size. We'll have to have another playdate with them again soon.

Well, thats all for now. I hope to find the camera cable soon so I can upload more pics. I will also keep you all updated on how I'm doing with this pregnancy (poor little Chloe) and now the gestational diabetes. Just pray for us.

My Little Princess

2009-03-09T21:28:00.003-05:00

This past weekend was super busy. I had a small yard sale, Jerry was at drill, and on top of that I put Emily in her first beauty pageant.Going into this I was really excited and I had great expectations that Emily would do everything she was supposed to and be super cute at it. In reality, I learned a very valuable lesson and Emily put me in my place.

On Friday, after day one of yard sale, we went to Rison, AR for pageant rehearsal. It was an hour and a half drive there and we were running 15 minutes late. I was kind of stressed already but not too bad. When we got there Emily saw a bunch of kids playing and so we let her play just to get her wiggles out. Eventually they let us have a go at walking around on stage. We had to wait behind a few kids and Emily was not having it. She just didn't undertand the concept of "wait for your turn". She had a massive melt down just waiting to go on stage. By the time we got on stage she was a mess. Still screaming and balling, she wouldn't walk to the "X's" and I was so stressed out , that I was almost pulling her to her spots and being a really mean mommy. Of course that made it all worse. By the time I got her off stage, I was so humiliated that I really wanted to cry too. Jerry was making it worse. Eventually Emily calmed down and I started apologizing to everyone about mine and Emily's behavior. We tried to practice again and again but it just wasn't going as well as I had expected. On the way home, I cried and cried. I called my momma just hoping for some good advice and I got it. When we got home, I let Jerry takeEmily so I could have some alone time to think about what I was doing and why everything was going wrong.
I realized that I had put some unrealistic expectations on my little girl. I expected an almost 2yr old who has never been in a pageant to go on stage follow my directions exactly and be super cute while doing it all on the first try. I didn't take into account the major distraction of other kids playing. I was only focused on what my child was doing wrong. I almost decided not to go back but I knew that if I didn't, I wouldn't be able to show all of those people who witnessed the melt down, that Emily really was a good child and I was a good mommy.

And now I am so glad that we went back and competed in the pageant. Mom went with me , we left early, arrived early, and I was not stressed at all. The main thing is that I went in with the attitude that I was going to let Emily be herself, and if she screamed on stage I wouldn't fret over it. I was going to be patient and show everyone that I was the happiest mom on the face of the earth even if I had to fake it. Emily must have felt change in my attitude because she was such an adorable princess on stage. Mom walked with her because I was sure Emily would do better with her than me. My baby was so perfect on stage- she hit all the x's , she clapped, waved and blew kisses. I cried and cried because this was my Emily and I was so proud of her. I could have cared less if she won or lost because my baby was letting her light shine. She was my sunshine and everyone could see that.

In the end, she was awarded 1st runner up Toddler Miss Sunshine. She recieved a big trophy which she is so proud of. I couldn't be more elated! I am so proud of her.
As for doing more pageants- absolutely! I have learned a valuable lesson from Emily. She calls the shots. I need to be understanding and patient with her. Besides, she is almost 2 and her emotions can be quite unpredictable. I will just take her as she is. I just need to be more patient and understanding.

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun!!!

2009-02-26T21:17:00.005-06:00

This week being my first official week of being a stay at home mom, was a busy one. We had story time at the library on Wed, lunch with the ladies and pictures on Thurs and today we had some shopping to do.

Story time at the library was so much fun. The librarian Mr. Jonathan read princess stories. We did some finger plays, sang a song, and played a fun game called find the princess before the dragon eats the prince. There different colored paper castles and under one of them was a princess and under another was the dragon. The paper prince had to find which castle the princess was in and if he picked the wrong one, he would get eaten by the dragon. It was too cute. We did "Going on a Dragon Hunt" which was kinda like the "Going on a Bear Hunt". At the end of story time, the kids colored paper crowns and taped them together so that they could wear them. It was so much fun!!

Then on Thursday we met up with some ladies from church for lunch. Lisa brought her daughter Isabelle who is Emily's age and in her nursery class. Both girls are blonde and curly. They play so well together.

They were so cute : they would share and talk to eachother. What one would do the other would do too.

I wish I had gotten more pics of them together but I did get a couple of Emily.

I'm telling you we had fun this week! I hope that the fun continues - which I'm sure it will!!!!

A Stay at Home Mom with a Little Jabberbox + Pics!!

2009-02-24T22:49:00.007-06:00

Guess what everyone-

I'M A STAY AT HOME MOMMY NOW!!!!! YEAH !!!!!!!!!!!

And boy does it feel good! Life can not get anybetter- at least until June, when Chloe is born.

I know sometimes that I can go on and on about Emily's growing vocabulary which by now is pretty lengthy. But now I can start a new section on the blog about her phrases and sentences. Most of them are in direct relation to her newfound independence. Here are a few of them:

" I do it."

" I read it."

" I got it."

She uses them all the time, like, when we are brushing her teeth, reading her bedtime stories or catching a ball.

And now that I found my usb cable, I can upload some pretty cute photos of my baby-oops, I mean big girl.

Feeding the kitties- such a big helper!

My ballerina princess loves the new double stoller.
My pretty little ballerina princess !! Maybe next year I can put her in dance classes.

Speaking of baby, our little baby bump Chloe, is growing too. She moves around so much like her sister did. I am finally not sick anymore. In fact, I've been feeling pretty darn good lately so I've put my darling husband to work, helping me clean, rearrange, declutter and fix things around the house. Being that I'm now six months pregnant I guess that I'm beginning to nest a bit. I feel like I need to get so much done before Chloe gets here. There are still a few things I need to get for her before she arrives so I guess we will have to work on that too.

Now that I am stay at home mom full time now, I have plenty of time to do things around the house. I also have more time with Emily. Now we can go to story time at the library and start work on potty training. She loves her pink potty! But that is another blog for another day.

She loves to sit on her potty, but so far no pee pee or poo-poo. But she will tell you " pee-pee in the potty." So she knows what the potty is for.

Emily loves to swing at the park. Now that the weather is getting nicer we can go more often and meet up with our other mommy friends in the afternoon.

Bye- Bye ACH !!!

2009-02-22T23:56:00.002-06:00

Well today ended my 9+ years career at Arkansas Children's Hospital working in the pharmacy. I started the day going to church, making a cake and going to work.
Coming home was the weirdest thing. I was just waiting for something bad to happen on the way home but nothing did. Thank goodness. Everthing was fine till Jerry hugged me and congratulated me. That's when it hit me. I have closed a chapter in life and now it is time to move on. ( Sniff!)

But the best thing in world right now is that I can say the phrase " Today is the first day of the rest of my life!" and really mean it!

Some one asked me today how we planned this out financially and otherwise. We had been cutting back here and there for a while. We had actually planned for me to quit in May so for me to quit in Feb. we had to make a few changes to our plans.

We've cut back on eating out, I clipped coupons and started sewing more. We cut the data package on our cell phones, all but stopped shopping at the expensive children's boutiques for clothes for Emily and Chloe :(((, and started shopping more at less expensive places for clothes and yard sales.
We had been doing some of these things for a while so it doesn't feel like such a dramatic change in lifestyle.
But selling the Honda C-RV and buying a gently used,less expensive mini- van will help a lot more.
So while money will be tight for a little while, we should still be okay. We just won't be able to fly the family out to Hawaii anytime we want ...lol.

But I want to thank all my friends at ACH for all those years of fun and all the memories! And I would also like the thank everyone for the support and encouragement of my decision to be a stay at home mom. I look forward to the challenges that lie ahead and pray for the best!

I hope to blog a lot more too!!!
And hopefully will find my usb cable for my camera so I can upload my pics of adorable Emily!!

Ups and downs

2009-02-18T21:47:00.002-06:00

Well good news everyone! We had another ultrasound and a fetal echocardiogram today and Chloe Elizabeth looks perfectly healthy from head to toe. We are now 23 weeks and a 3 days. Chloe is measuring 22 weeks and 6 days; weight so far is 1lb 4oz; heart rate was 131 when she was sleeping and 145 when she was awake.
We were able to get some great video and 4D video of her but can't seem to upload it at the moment. Jerry is going to take the DVD to work and see if he can do something about that. So as soon as we have video available we will post it.

Emily and I went to the park today after the ultrasound because the weather was so nice. She loves to swing and go down the slide. She could play out there for hours. She just giggles and runs. It's a blast to watch her have so much fun. She is such a happy little sunshine!! I bet Chloe is the same way. I can't wait to see them play and laugh together. I'm going to do everything I can to make sure the girls are close, loving relationship.

Those were the " Up" of the week. Here's the "down". Jon's divorce is getting messier. While Jerry and I would like to stay out of it, we were brought into it when Mom and Jon told us both that they were planning to try to get full custody of Rylee.
Both mine and Jerry's stance on the situation is clear: Both parents have problems-neither is perfect however we don't like the idea of Rylee being taken from her mother. We love Jon and want to support him but not in this endeavor.
Jerry and I believe marriage to be ordained by God and a sacred covenant between man and wife and God. We believe in the sanctity of families. So this whole situation between my brother Jon and his wife/ex is heartbreaking.
It is my wish that Jon and Angela even through the divorce put their petty differences asside and try to focus on Rylee and even Ryann. I worry so much about the girls.

But all I can do at this time is pray for them and try to talk them in calming things down a bit.

Oh- I almost forgot, more ups for the week!
I finished my antibiotics today for my sinus infection. No one is sick at my house anymore-yeah!!

Quite a bad day....

2009-02-07T15:26:00.004-06:00

Where oh where do I begin? Oh- I know, around 5:30 am. Little Miss Emily whose been teething and kinda fussy, decided to wake up early while Jerry was getting ready to leave for drill this weekend. I begged him to take her down stairs and get her settled before he left so that I could get a little more sleep. I have to work this weekend also, 2pm to 10:30pm. But Emily wasn't having it. So I got up with her and tried to console her. Finally around 6:30am I got her to come back to bed with me. We both slept for about an hour. She woke up happier and I was glad that she was feeling better so I took her downstairs for some "Caillou". That worked for a while. After about an hour or so Iwent upstairs and got a shower, then went down to check on her. She wanted Mommy again so I loved on her for a moment then decided to put her in her crib and let her play while I got ready. Oh my- she was not happy about that. I was seriously stressing out and she was screaming. It was horrible. I checked on her , turned on some music and went to finish getting ready. When I went to go get her ready, I found her covered in vomit. It was everywhere. So I freaked out a little because I felt like a bad mother for letting her get so upset that she got sick. But I had to get ready and I can't let her roam around the house all by her self for an hour while I shower and get ready. It's one thing to let her watch Elmo or Caillou while I shower- that's the quick part (about 5 minutes) but she won't sit there for 45 minutes or so while I get dressed, do makeup, hair and ect...
So anyway, feeling like a bad mommy, I called the Brittany to come over and watch Emily while I cleaned up the mess. I called Jerry to let him know what was happening and he deciced to come home and help out for a few minutes. After Brittany arrived my stress level went down dramatically. Then Jerry came in and got Emily all packed up for Nana's house while I gave her a bath. With all the Lysol and Febreeze I used the room now smells quite nice and is probably one of the cleanest in the house.
Anyway, with the help of Brittany and Jerry, my sanity was saved. Emily still fussy from teething has not thrown up since then and I made it out of the house in plenty of time for work.

It was one of those days.
Now I need a cherry slushy to make it all better (and ice quite spot on the beach somewhere warm and sunny).
I seriously could go for a cherry slush about now........

Our growing family!

2009-02-03T15:53:00.003-06:00

I'm sorry that I haven't blogged in while, but I'm going to start again now that I am leaving my job in few weeks. Of course that means that I will have to start managing my time better and keeping Emily on her schedule so that I can do this while she naps.

Well, like the title of my post says our family is growing. We are expecting our 2nd little girl in June. Her name is going to be Chloe Elizabeth Cathey. I've already started buying matching outfits for her and Emily. I would like to do her nursery in a lavender theme but I'm not finding anything I like yet.

While I am getting them a few matching outfits, I do try to keep in mind that they are two completely different individuals. For examle this pregnancy has been so different than when I was pregnant with Emily. I gained 50+ lbs with Emily but with this baby, so far I've only gained 7lbs at 21 weeks. I've been a lot sicker with this pregnany and have had a lot of heart burn too.

But Emily is keeping me busy though maybe that's why I haven't gained as much. Chasing after a little bundle of energy all day wears me out. She says some of the cutes things too! Now is saying "Thank you baby" everytime she says thank you and "No baby!" when she doesn't want something or if she doensn't want to do something. Sometimes she say, "Nope" or "yes or yeah". I'm willing to bet the next new phrase is "yeah baby." She has said "I love you Mommy" and "I love Mommy". She said it on Jan 27th and hasn't said it since then. But Jerry and I both heard it so I know I'm not crazy (which we all know is debatable from time to time).

Now that I'm going to be a stay at home (and probably broke) mom, I plan on devoting more time to sewing and crafting for my girls and of course taking good care of my sweet 90 yr old grandmother.

Apple Picking Fun!

2008-10-14T22:00:00.002-05:00

Okay you all will have to forgive me. I have been feeling sick in the afternoons and evenings and really tired so I may not blog as often as I like. But I do have more to blog about now. In case some of you haven't heard, we are expecting our 2nd baby. Yes, I'm pregnant and I'm due in June. I'm not very far along but I have been more sick with with baby than with Emily. In fact I didn't have morning sickness at all with Emily. With this baby, I'm sick usually in the afternoon or evening and followed by heartburn at bedtime. I find that if I stick to soup and crackers I feel better. I had Mexican food for dinner because I was feeling okay and now I feel sick. I should've just stuck to soup and crackers. So now I'm off to find some ginger ale or diet sprite.

On Saturday, we went to Guy which is north of Conway,AR and on the way to Heber Springs,Ar to pick apples. When we got there we were told that Arkansas Black and Red Delicious were what we could pick. Jerry ,Emily and I went to the last three rows of trees to pick the AR black. We were dissappointed to find that most of the apples were already picked. We were able to find about 20-25 apples on the trees. Emily had a lot of fun! She got to run free and pick up apples off the ground. She loved finding apples. We let her put the good ones in the sack. She was so proud of herself! Jerry and I were proud of her too! After we gathered the last (literally) apples from that section, we went off to find the Red Delicious apples thinking they would be more plentiful.
WRONG!
There were even less of them. We were able to find 5 or 6 of them. It was kind of a waste of time. But we made the most of it and decided to take pictures of Emily picking apples.
We definately want to go apple picking again but I think we will go sooner like in early to mid September when there are plenty of apples to pick.

Emily's big girl slide !

2008-10-05T16:24:00.004-05:00

We have a Little Tikes slide that we've kept outside on the deck for our friends kid's and our nieces and nephew to play on. Recently we decided Emily was big enough to slide on it so I had Jerry clean it up and bring it into the playroom. After a little coaching from Mommy, Emily climbed up and slid down all by herself!! She love's going down the slide! Anticipating that there would be falls off of the slide, I had jerry put the foam alphabet mat on top of the carpet mat. Then we put the slide on top of that. At the base of the slide, we put down another foam mat. So now when she falls we won't panic so bad! She's already fallen off once with me close by and then another time with Jerry. Of course she cried and was scared, but other than that she was okay.

Emily is getting the animal sounds down and can do "Itsy Bitsy Spider" really well now in addition to "If You're Happy and You Know It" and "Pat-a Cake". We're working on "Popcorn Popping" and calling the Hogs(Razorbacks for you out of staters). Sometimes these are the only things I can do to keep her calm while we are shopping. It's not unusual to see me pushing a shopping cart with Emily in it and singing those songs to her while she plays a long. People look at us, but even though I feel silly, I do it anyway. Oh the things we do as parents to keep our children occupied.

I look forward to Tuesday-my first official cooking show! Mom is hosting it at her house. I'm a little nervous but more excited than nervous. I've already practiced the recipes- Three Cheese Garden Pizza and Strawberry Amaretto Pastries. Now all that has to be done it gathering any outside orders and reminding the guests. Mom is going to recieve so much free stuff. Actually anyone who hosts a show before Oct 27th gets an extra free gift in addition to the hostess gift, free product value of $15-90 and half price items. Not only that, "I cook, I clean, I leave, and you get all the FREE stuff! How fun is that?!!
So if you haven't received your invitation the party is Tuesday Oct. 7th at 6:30pm . Bring a friend and get a gift!

Little Miss Big Girl!

2008-10-01T20:15:00.006-05:00

Emily is such a big girl! I'm very proud of that too. She now crawls up the stairs and gets ready for bed with little help from us. The only things we do are help her brush her teeth and pick her up to put her in her crib. Okay and we say the prayer too. But Emily knows the routine. She tells us night-night when she's tired (if it's before 8pm). She crawls up the stairs, points to the bathroom and says,"teeth". We put her on the bathroom cabinet and help her brush, but she likes to do it herself. She also rinses off her toothbrush by herself. Then we put her down and she runs to her room, pushes the button on the cd player to start the music and grabs a book. We read a book, say our prayer and along with her bear, put her to bed. Then we let her go to sleep.
I love it!!

Next we are going to an orchard to pick apples. I am so excited! This is going to be a new family tradition. Emily will have so much fun because she loves apples. She also calls them "bapples". I will give her pieces with out the skin and she gobbles them down. I'm going to take the camera and hopefully get lots of good pictures. My friend Andrea said we should get Emily an apple picking outfit. Good thinking Andrea!
At the orchard, they have Granny Smith, Rome, Fuji, Arkansas Black and a few others types of apples. I plan on taking a couple of baskets. We will eat lots of them but I would like to make a pie or two and some turnovers. Who know what else I will make??

Back to normal-almost..

2008-09-24T23:55:00.004-05:00

My husband finally went back to work! He is much happier now that he is back to his normal routine. His last week at home he pretty much worked from the couch. He would get calls all day long and be on his computer most of the day. The guys in his unit really rely on him to keep eveything together. And he pretty much does. That is why I think he will make a great First Sargeant one day!

Miss Emily is quite the little imitator now. Her babysitter Jess taught her to hold out her finger and thumb and say,"dude!". She also is calling the hogs -Razorbacks to you all who are not from Arkansas. She raises her arms and says" Woooooo Pig !" And speaking of pig, Emily knows what the pig says. She will say "nk-nk". So we have the duck sound and the pig sound down. Now we just need to work on the other animals.

Emily had a check up yesterday and got some shots. She now weighs 19lbs and 7oz. I know that sounds small but, she is following her curve on the growth chart and Dr. Schmitz is not worried. Besides my little girl eats like a pig. She loves meat and will eat almost anything. Since I see her eat so much, I don't worry.

I am excited because I just got my kit it to start selling Pampered Chef. I have already been doing the online training and have booked my first cooking show for October. My goal is to book at least 3 more by the end of the month. I am getting ready to open a catalog show for the end of this month so if anyone wants to order anything just let me know. I plan on placing an add in the Otter Creek newsletter for November and already have someone that wants to book a show then. When you book a cooking show with me within the next 30 days, you will recieve an extra gift in addition to the hostess gift, hostess special, free and half-price items, and generous discounts. I hope to have my website up and running soon too. So if you would like to find out how to earn free, half-price and discounted items, just contact me about doing a cooking or catalog show. My calendar is filling up pretty fast so let me know soon.

2008-09-17T19:54:00.003-05:00

I know that it is still September but we already have started decorating for fall. Since the weather has been so pleasant even a little cool we took advantage of it and opened all the windows in the house. I hung up my fall wreath yesterday and even made a pot of chili (thanks to Sis. Webster for the idea.)

Jerry and I took Emily to the park for a little bit to play on the swings and slide. She had a good time walking around in the small pebbles that cushion the play area. Poor Emily was not happy when we had to leave. She brightened up when we got rolling along in the wagon though.

I have already bought Emily's costume for Halloween. She is going to be a bumble bee. I even bought her the striped bumble bee tights. She has a wand and a cute headband with a corker bow in lieu of bumble bee antennae. I even went so far as to buy her a cute little plush honey pot purse. It has the words "honey bee" in rhinestones on the front. Now if I could just figure out what Jerry and I could be for Halloween. Looking online for ideas was dissapointing. Everything for adults was either sleazy, disgusting or stupid. We are going to have be creative. I found some shirts at Savers that said "Alltell" and "T-Mobile" and thought about being those phone guys from the Alltell commercials but we need someone to be Verizon and someone else to be "AT&T". I'm hoping to find some other options in case that doesn't pan out. If you all have some ideas just let me know. I'm open to suggestions.

2008-09-15T22:23:00.003-05:00

Bye -Bye virus! Emily has been better for a several days now. That virus was around for almost a week. The hardest part was not letting Emily have her milk. That girl loves her milk. In fact , when she wants milk, she calls it "moo". The funny thing is that if you ask her what a cow says she'll tell you ,"ca-ca"(quack-quack). Right now every animal say "ca-ca". We're working on that though. She also has a happy birthday dance now. We watch The Sunny Side Up Show on PBS Sprout in the mornings. They have three different hosts and every morning, they do a happy birthday dance to their "Happy Happy Birthday" song. Emily has started doing her own dace to the song. So we are going to record her doing her dance and send it in to the show. It just so happens that they are having a birthday party for Chica the chicken on Friday so we can send it in for her!

Jerry is doing great with his knee! He's been helping around the house, and getting up and getting out. He's been going to physical therapy once a week at the airforce base. Friday when he had therapy, we went to the case lot sale at the commissary and stocked up on food and gas (not because of Ike) just because we were there and it was convenient.

Speaking of Ike, we got a lot of wind and rain. Our electricity flickered a couple of times but never went out . Our neighbors Dale and Rhonda however, had a huge pine tree fall down in their backyard! Luckily, it fell away from their house and hit the back corner of the fence and into our yard. Nothing was damaged except for the fence. What a blessing! Jerry, Pete Offerman(another neighbor) and Joel Junkans(yet another neighbor), and Terry Webster( a great friend from church) spent Sunday cleaning up the debrie and getting the tree cut up.
Now it's in chunks ready to be hauled away. I need to make some cookies and take to everyone who helped.
Speaking of cookies, I'm going to start selling Pampered Chef ! I can't wait! I love to cook and I love their products. I also have some great ideas and recipes for cooking shows. The great thing about selling Pampered Chef is that if I decide I want to stop selling, I will have stuff that I can actually use. Pretty soon I will post and let you all know when I'm taking orders. I plan on putting in orders two to three times a week. I'll do catalogue shows and cooking shows. Just be thinking about what you want and be ready to order in a couple of weeks!

Poor Emily!

2008-09-08T19:43:00.004-05:00

I'm so glad that I took the time to try finger painting with Emily. She didn't enjoy it as much as I thought she would. But at least we did it beforethe virus hit.

Our little Emily had a virus for a few days now. We've been dealing with the diarrhea and runny nose since Friday. Today she has only had two episodes but before she was having a lot more. She doesn't like the BRAT diet but it has helped a little. But kids are so resilient. She'll be fine in another day or two.
In fact she was in the bath tub last night playing with her duckies saying "ca, ca, ca". That is how she says "quack, quack, quack". She was having a great time. But she woke up in the middle of the night, crying for her Mommy. I gave her ibuprofen and pedialyte ,then we rocked for a while. After a few minutes of rocking, we put her back to bed and she was okay the rest of the night.
This morning she woke up all happy and smiling at me. I gave her a bowl with banana pieces which she calls (nanas) and cheerios. She didn't want the "nanas" but she ate the cheerios like a champ. We played a few games and she acted fine. She loves playing "Itsy bitsy spider" and "This little piggy". But we have the most fun playing "If your Happy and You Know it!" She does all the motions in the song like clapping her hands, slapping her knees, saying"Amen!" and doing the happy face(if your happy and you know it then your face should surely show it).
She is so fun! I can't wait to do so many fun things with her!! I think she is getting to the point where she will enjoy them. Things like going to the zoo, Chuck E Cheese, and trick or treating should be fun for her now.

Speaking of fun, Jerry decided he would try something new- he is growing out his beard! I wasn't too sure about it at first but since he has trimmed it up, I think he looks rather handsome with it!

Too bad he had to shave it off tonight. He has to go on base for physical therapy. If you are a soldier and go on base you have look like a soldier.

But even with out a beard my hubby is still as handsome as can be! I love him!!!

Bad Times and Good Times.

2008-09-08T17:32:00.008-05:00

Let me first of all retract a statement I made on my last blog. It said something about how easy it would be to take care of Jerry. For the first couple of days it was anything but easy. He came home Wednesday morning with a cooling pump thing, and a drainage bag for his knee. He wasn't in a lot of pain at first but he couldn't move that leg for two days because of the numbing medicine they injected into him. He stayed on the couch and and I took care of him. But I also tried taking care of Emily, tried to clean house and get clothes ready for the Rhea Lana sale. It was crazy.

However, by the weekend my brother Josh and his wife Kim came to town with their kids for my Grandma's 90th birthday party. We had a blast with them! Emily loved playing with her cousins Paxton and Lorelei. Grandma's party was a hit! Her sisters and brother came out to see her. She and her sisters wore matching pink shirts and they were so cute! Emily, Lorelei and Rylee wore matching tutus, tiara shirts and tiaras! They were perfect little princesses! Even Grandma wore a tiara! Fun was had by all as they reminisced about the good old days, while kids ran around playing with each other.

It was a pretty fun time!

Please Pray for Jerry!

2008-08-26T19:43:00.003-05:00

Jerry is having knee surgery tomorrow to replace a torn ACL. Please pray for a successful surgery and a quick recovery.

I just hope that I can take good care of him and keep him off his knee for a few days. My plan is to keep Jerry downstairs on the sofa with some pillows and magazines or even a computer to work on; just as long as he is comfortable and can relax. I'm sure I will have my hands full with tornado baby(Emily) but taking care of Jerry should be relatively easy.

Speaking of tornado baby, let me tell you all about what happened today. Emily,like all toddlers goes from room to room making messes all day long. Well, today I was tired and not really in the mood for it. So, I took her to the play room and closed off the stairs with a gate. While she was playing, I made lunch and was getting ready to put it on the table when I heard her saying,"Mama, Mama". I went to the gate to get her. When I picked her up, she was soaking wet! She had litter and catfood all over her and drenched in water. She had gotten into the cats' room and made a huge mess. So quickly I took upstairs gave her a bath, put on new clothes and put her in her crib so I could have a minute to clean up the bathroom and finish with lunch. I wouldn't have been so stressed out about it if I didn't have to go to work today. Nor would I have been upset if this was the first time it had happened. The first time she did this, I thought it was funny and I took a picture. Let me reassure you this time, it wasn't funny. Since she's done this before, I have got to figure out how to keep her out of the cats' area and out of trouble. I actually feel really bad for them.

But little miss mess is still sweeter than ever. Before I went to work, she gave me lots of kisses and hugs. So how can I stay upset with that?

Bye-Bye Ba-Ba!!

2008-08-23T16:40:00.004-05:00

Well folks, I think it's official- Emily is off the bottle or "Ba-Ba" as she called it. For the past several days, it has been nothing but sippy cups and juice boxes. I haven't even said "Ba-ba" or bottle in front of her. And Emily hasn't said it either. We keep saying milk or juice in hopes that these words will be easily picked up. She's been trying to say juice but it keeps coming out as"Di or Ji". But we'll keep working on that.

Emily has this new thing she does now with her carseat. We took it out the car so the babysitters could take her to Target with them and now it's been sitting in the kitchen for a while. Well little miss priss gets in the carseat and says," Go bye-bye". It's so cute! I guess she like's going bye-bye. It's fun to take her out because she is so social(except when she comes to see Mommy at work, she's kind of shy then.)

Our Family Vacation in Washington,DC

2008-08-17T21:27:00.004-05:00

I am so in love with the Washington,DC area. When can we go back??? It was absolutely amazing! While Emily probably didn't get as much out of it as we did, she still was a wonderful traveller. She was so good on her first airplane rides that I would consider flying with her again in a heartbeat. I didn't have to give Emily any "airplane vitamins" or Benedryl. She even got wings from the flight attendants.

On our first day, Jerry and I had to get up at 4am to get ready and be at the airport by 5am. Mine and Emily's flight was scheduled to depart from LIT at 6:30 am. Poor Emily was such a good sport about getting up that early.

Emily and I flew separatly from Jerry, so we got there before he did. We arrived in DC at about 11:30am and took off sight seeing immediately. After lunch we went to the hotel for an early check in so we could nap, but somebody wouldn't nap. When Jerry arrived, we went out for more sightseeing and let him be our tour guide. That night we went to Georgetown for dinner and shopping. We went to Clyde's for an amazing dinner and walked up and the the main streets to see the stores and the Old Stone House and garden that was beside it.

On day two, Emily and I walked to Union Station, stopping by the U.S. Botanical Gardens and the Capital. We took tons of pictures of gardens and capital. After lunch at Union Station, we walked to the Smithsonian. Actually we decided to go to the Castle and get some info about what time things closed up. After finding out that the Air and Space Museum was open until 7:30 that night, we decided to wait and go with Jerry to that one. Jerry was in class everyday from 8-4p so that left us with time to go out with him and do some things as a family. That night for dinner we went to The Melting Pot, a fondue restaurant. We had some terrific Carribbean themed fondue. And the chocolate fondue was out of this world! We stayed there for 2 1/2 hours ,but Emily was fun and had a good time too! After all of that fun we drove around and found China Town. It was pretty cool from a distance-but not a good place to go after dark.

On Day three, we went to the Library of Congress and Bartholdi Park. The LOC was so beautiful and so big. Emily and I only made it to the Jefferson Building but next time I would like to go to the Madison and Adams buildings and see what they have there. That night for dinner, we went to see our friends Drew and Ashley Smith in Dumfries,VA. The trip was so scenic. On the way there we stopped at FT. Belvior. That is the prettiest military base, I have ever scene. It was so cutesy. The officer housing is row after row of town homes, and there is even a spa in one the shopping centers. The BX/PX is huge and right next door is the commissary. Outside of the base, Virginia was still beautiful.

The next day I took Emily to the National Zoo. We took the Metro to Cleveland Park which is another area of DC that is absolutely charming and walk a couple of blocks to the zoo. Emily had fun watching the pandas and monkeys. We saw lots of animals and got some good pics. After the zoo, we walked around Cleveland Park and took the Metro back. I really wanted to go to Filene's Basement and still wanted to see the temple. After Jerry got out of class, we took the Metro to Farragut west, and checked out Filene's. It was awsome!!! I bought a pair of Blue Breed jeans that retail for $165 and paid $20 for them. I also got a pair of DKNY jeans for $17. I love that store. They also had my favorite perfume for $20 cheaper that the BX. I can't wait to go back there. After that, we walked around till we got to the Hay-Adams Hotel. We talked to the manager and he let us go to the roof where we got some amazing pictures of the spectacular view.

We walked around and saw the 1st infantry memorial and walked through the park. Emily got to run free there and she enjoyed it immensely. We made it to the metro station at the Smithsonian and took it back to the hotel. The temple was our next destination. We got in the car put the address into the Tom-Tom. Jerry thought he could take a different route so we ignore the Tom-Tom. We got lost. We almost ran out of gas at the Pentagon. After finally getting gas, we got on the road and decided to trust Tom-Tom. I'm glad we did because even though it was dark outside, we still got to see a beautiful part of Chevy Chase, MD where we almost had a wreck. But everything was worth it when we saw the spires of the temple. It was so beautiful. I had waited my whole life to see it and finally here I was. It was so emotional for me. To have Jerry and Emily there with me made the experiance complete.

Our final day, Emily and I went to NASA HQ, which was right across from our hotel. We went to the gift shop and took a few pictures. I bet if Jerry had been there, we could have done more. It was still neat to be there. Then we left for the airport. I was so sad to leave. I loved being in Washington,DC so much that I can't wait to go back.

I'm glad Jerry goes there several times a year, because so will we now!

We are getting excited!

2008-08-06T20:20:00.006-05:00

Yeah, my Tupperware came today! I had ordered the little tumblers with the sippy lids and the shape sorter. They are just as I remembered as a kid (except the tumblers are better colors). I love the shape sorter because there are more shapes and all the pieces fit inside so when it's time to pick up toys it's easy- just put all the shapes in the sorter. Emily likes to play the "uh-oh" game now. She throws stuff off her high chair and says "Uh-oh!" then watches our reactions. I can't wait to try the sippy cups out and see if the tops stay on when thrown on the floor. By the way there are still a few days left to order your Tupperware! If you didn't get an invitation from me -let me know and send me your email address.

Emily has a new favorite toy now besided "Be"her bear. She loves this toy that has a steering wheel and makes music. It bulldozer looking toy she got from cousins Amy andChaz and thier boys. Every child that comes to our house to play loves that toy. Since Emily likes it so much, we take it with us on car rides. She drives along with us and has so much fun. Car rides are much more pleasant now.

Vroom Vroom! Just like Mommy&

Daddy!!!

Well, we have just a few more days until we leave for Washington,DC and am I excited! I'm also a little nervous. Taking a 15mo old on an airplane provides enough challenges like keeping her calm, and entertained, but then grabbing all the bags, and calling for a taxi and getting to the hotel before Jerry arrives is a lot to handle. But I can do it. I'm an army wife.

Some of the things I want to do are: Take Emily to the zoo, and story time at the National Gallery, the national mall (not an actual shopping mall for those who don't know), certain parts of the Smithsonian, and George Washington's Mansion. In the Smithsonian, I want to see the Freer Gallery, and Portrait Gallery. And let's not forget the Library of Congress. I look forward to that one the most. Luckily most everything we want to see and do is withing walking distance or we can take the metro. I can't wait to post pictures from our trip.

Emily's picked up so many more words this week. She now says bubble, pink, night-night,uh-oh, and Jerry swears that she said the word "back". She tries to say kitty, but it just sounds like she's trying to spit instead. Oh and she loves to chase the kitties all over the house. It's her newest game. She's even tried to play fetch with them but they don't go after the ball. She's so funny. She also will go get a book and bring it to one of us and say, "book" , so we read it to her.

In the battle of the bottle, we are making some headway. Last night, we gave her a cup of milk instead of a bottle before putting her to bed. She took it without a fuss and chugged it down.

So we are going to try again tonight with the cup. Wish us luck.

2008-07-30T00:20:00.003-05:00

Emily is so spoiled! But when I look at her adorable face, I think she should be. It's so cute when she is walking through the house with "B" her bear, and saying "Mama,Mama,Mama..." over and over. When I'm busy doing something, and I hear her say "Mama", I turn around and say" What Baby?" She'll just smile at me. It just makes my heart melt.

Emily is beginning to be Mommy's little helper too. She "helps" with the dishes by picking up the clean ones out of the dishwasher and i take them from her before they end up on the floor. We talk about what color they are, but I don't think she understands just yet. She also "helps" me with the laundry. She climbs up on the laundry basket, and she picks up the clothes and drags them around until I tell her to bring them to me. She watches me put them in the washer and then the dryer.

Speaking of laundry, I made a profound discovery. There has not been one month that has gone by since Emily's been born, that I have not bought her clothes of some sort. I wonder if I have even let a week go by with out buying her something. I'm sure I have. But I'm beginning to wonder if I have a shopping problem. Maybe I need to go to some shopping rehab. I'm going to have to challenge myself to go an entire month without buying some article of clothing for Emily. The problem I have though is that fall is coming up. Sure, if you look in her closet it might seem like she has a good start on fall clothes, but she still needs a few shirts, sweaters, shoes, dresses.....ect.. So I think what I will do is just cut back on what I'm buying. I will spend less on clothes for her this fall-that's my goal.

Maybe now, I will buy more clothes for myself. Most of you who have seen me probably agree that I need some serious help in the clothes and hair dept. So maybe this fall, I will treat myself to some much needed clothing and a stylish haircut.

By the way- if you haven't recieved an email from me, I'm hosting an online Tupperware party. The great thing about it is that you can shop anytime you like either at work or at home. The party is open until Aug 12th. If you are interested and have not received an invitation, email me at : lingerdoodle@comcast.net
I have to email the invitations becaused they are coded for my party exclusively.

2008-07-26T20:22:00.007-05:00

Got milk? Emily does. She loves milk. We are now going through a gallon and a half a week of whole milk. I can't help but wonder if she's getting too much milk. But then again she is so little that I do what I can to push the calories. Emily is so cute when I make her bottles or cups of milk. When I open the fridge, she says,"cold". Then I put it in the microwave. When it beeps, she gets all excited and screams"Baba!"

She's just so talkative. This morning when she got up from her nap, she just walked around the den babbling up a storm about something. We had no idea what she was saying but she would look at us as if we were supposed to understand everything. So we would just nod our heads and say okay and then she kept going on. She is saying many words now. She'll even say "cheese" when we ask her if she wants some cheese or when we take a picture and tell her to say cheese.

At lunch today she kept saying ,"Bo", and looking for him. So I think I need to plan a trip to Nana's so she can play with Bo. The last time we were there, she played ball with him. Emily would through the ball and Bo would go and get it . She just laughed and laughed. Then Bo would bring it back and the game would start all over again. I think she tired poor Bo out. But it was so cute to watch. I'm going to try and get it on video next time.

I'm blogging again!!

2008-07-23T20:32:00.003-05:00

I never realized how many people read my blog until I stopped blogging. So, back by poplular demand- The Cathey Family !!!!!

Now for the updates:
Emily,now 14mo, is walking all over the place and talking non stop. Of course when I say talking, I mean little things like saying: baby, dada, mama,nana, papa,book, Bo(Mom's dog), bear, hot,cold, bath, amen, hi, bye-bye and go bye-bye. And of course the baby jibberish.
She's been using the sippy cup from about 6mo. Now she drinks from a straw, and a regular cup without much mess. We still use the baba (bottle) most of the time when we are home. I'm not thrilled about it but we are going to try quitting in a couple of months.
Her little blonde curls are really starting to grow.

I can't wait to put them in pigtails!!

My poor Jerry tore his ACL and pretty much has no meniscus. We are now waiting to hear from the Ortho Doc. I'm sure that surgery is in the future so I'm trying to save my vacation days at work so that I can take off to be with him for surgery. For now, I'm taking care of mowing the grass and some of the other chores he does.

I'm also trying to save vacation days for out trip to Washington, DC. Jerry has an HPAC course there for a couple of days,so Emily and I are going to go with him!! We are all so excited! I love getting to travel with Jerry. He is such a great tour guide in places that he has been to before like DC. I have already thought about things I want to do with Emily and things we can do as a family. I just hope we have the time. We're only going to be there for four days.

As for me, before I had my gallbladder removed, I lost 20 lbs. So now I'm trying to lose the next 20 by the fall. But since we've decided to try for another baby, I may not make that goal. So my plan B is just to keep working out and losing weight until we get pregnant -if it happens at all.

So wish us luck with everything and I will blog again soon!

Teething Woes

2008-03-17T19:47:00.003-05:00

Sorry, I haven't blogged for a while. I have been trying to focus on my family and deal with Emily's teething.
That first tooth really gave Emily a hard time. She had fever, diarreah, diaper rash, and she was sooo cranky. Poor baby, I would be too if I had to go through all of that for a tooth. This time she is still a little fussy but not too bad and running fever. But so far just one or two funky diapers and no diaper rash. It's still pretty early though. Maybe I'm just handling it better because, I know what to expect.
Her one little tooth is so cute! I can't wait to post pics of it. You can see it when she smiles sometimes. It is so adorable. Hopefully, I can post pics tomorrow on her 10 months old blog.

I will post a lot more tomorrow because Emily has grown and done so much over the last couple of weeks. In fact one of the reasons I haven't blogged is because we have been busy trying to keep up with Emily who is crawling all over the place and into everything. Daddy's dvds and video games are no longer safe from baby drool. The cats in trouble now too. She can crawl after them even though they are faster than she is. But they are so good with her. They are content to let her pull at their ears and try to ride on them (especially poor Socks).

She is definately an energetic baby. But we are so blessed to have her!

Thanks for the prayers!

2008-02-29T16:12:00.003-06:00

Thank you so much for the prayers for my Grandmother. She is at home with my parents, doing okay and very happy to be there instead of the hospital.

But now that Grandma is home and fine, I'm going crazy with a teething 9 month old! No one warned me it was going to be this bad. Fever, diarrhea, wicked diaper rash, constant crying and flagrant hysterics, wore me out this week. We are still not finished though. Yesterday, at her 9mo check up, her temp was 99.4F which isn't considered a fever. I had given her ibuprofen that morning so it was still working then, but by the time we got home it was 102.4F. She was hysterical, I was tired and on the verge of tears, because we have been dealing with this fever for more that a week. The doctor said that it wasn't normal for babies to have fever for that long while teething. So now I have to take her back next week, if she continues to have this fever. The crazy thing is that once I giver her acetaminophen or ibuprofen, she is fine. Help me someone before I go nuts!

The crankiness is driving me batty too. My sweet little baby is now so irritable, that even the littlest things set her off. If I pick her up when she wants to play or if I don't pick her up right then and there, she goes balistic. My physical therapist recommended amaretto (for me or for Emily?). I sometimes this this whole teething business is going to drive me to drink. Maybe not.

For now, I am enjoying the quiet times when she naps or when I can sooth her by rocking. We've started listening to the classical music radio station while rocking to replace my nursing for comfort. It works pretty well. We both relax and enjoy the music. I've even heard a few familiar pieces like "Carmen", and some Beethoven. It also sounds a lot better than Baby Einstein.

Please pray that we make it through the teething without going insane.

Prayers For Grandma

2008-02-20T23:28:00.002-06:00

Please pray for my Grandmother. She has had a mild stroke and is in the hospital. She is also very confused and dissoriented too which is probably due to UTI she has as well. She is finally out of the ICU and in a private room. But she is going to be there for a few more days at least. We are waiting for a cardiology consult because they detected a heart murmer and her carotid doppler showed something that might indicate a blockage. So please keep her in your prayers. Thank you.

Emily Ruth is 9 months old today!!!!!!!!

2008-02-19T00:13:00.006-06:00

Yeah!!! Emily is now 9 months old and doing great! Our little baby is growing so big! She is crawling, saying "ma-ma, da-da,na-na" and several other things. She has outgrown her 6-9 month clothes. We have plenty of 12 mo. clothes, but thank goodness the Rhea Lana sale is just around the corner. I plan on stocking up on 18 mo clothes and some toys.

This weekend we took Emily to Crazy Hibatchi in North Little Rock. It's like Benihana but better. Our nephew Jason turned 13 and wanted to go there for his birthday. We all had a good time. I was concerned that Emily would be scared of the loud noise and the fire. It didn't scare her at all. She was amazed by the show. In fact, after our food was served to us, she kept looking around at the other tables for more. She also loved her Aunt Tina , Uncle James, and cousins, Jason and Steven. The boys wore her out. They had a great time playing with her. She is at a real fun age where the boys can interact with her. Tina and I enjoyed watching the kids play and have a good time. We will all have to go out together again!

Good News and Bad News

2008-02-15T23:00:00.005-06:00

I have some good news to share with everyone: Emily is crawling!!! She started crawling yesterday which happened to be her first Valentine's Day as well. She had been scooting backwards for a few days. But that morning I could have sworn I had seen some forward motion. but it stopped almost as soon as it had started. Then last night while Jerry and I were snuggled up watching a movie, we saw both saw her move forwards toward the TV. It was so amazing. I even think she was excited. So we all had a great Valentines Day!!

Now for the bad or rather sad news. I have stopped nursing Emily. It was not an easy decision. In fact even now my heart is breaking. Emily is fine though, I'm sure she is curious as to why she's not getting Mommy's milk. For the past couple of months my hormones have been really screwed up (which I'm sure is normal after childbirth). Irregular and painful cycles, bad moodswings, and of course some mild depression and anxiety. I called my Dr. and we decided to back to the "Pill". This will put my body back on track. But I had to quit nursing completely. After crying and then praying, I came to the conclusion that this was the best course of action in order to be a good wife and mother.

I know Emily will be okay since she is nearly 9mo old.She already uses the sippy cup and bottle and feeds herself. It's me that's having a hard time. Yesterday was the last day of nursing her and I cherished every moment. Today we started with a bottle , and it felt weird even though we had been supplementing occasionally. But tonight, before bed when I gave her the last one, I cried. It will be okay. I will be fine. Emily did fine today and I'm sure she will continue to do so. All I can do is tell myself that I will be a better mommy by sacrifcing breastfeeding for leveled out hormones. I'll also be a better wife for Jerry. He deserves that.

I just hope that if we have another baby, I will be able to nurse longer. God willing, maybe my body will let me.

2008-02-10T15:07:00.004-06:00

I would like begin this blog by thanking everyone for the reassuring comments and advice that I've received about Emily not crawling. Now, I feel much better and can enjoy watching her develope other crucial skills. Thanks again you all !!

Emily is such a mommy's girl. Probably because we spend so much time together. Of course, I'm eating it up! Jerry says that when I'm at work, Emily will look around for me and say,"Ma-ma", over and over. She did the same thing with me with morning except when Jerry left the room, she kept looking for him and saying,"Da-da".

Even when we are out and about as a family,like Friday night at the family Valentines Day dance at church, she wanted Mama most of the time. Of course the minute we got there she was whisked away by, Bro.Jones who took her to the dance floor and danced with her. From there she got passed onto Sis. Jones, and Sis. Goddard who held her while I fed her some jello. Eventually Emily dissapeared from my sight, and while I wasn't too worried, I still had Jerry go and check to see who she was with. He found her with the Goddards, so all was well. Finally we got her back long enough to dance to a few fun songs. But still while we were together she wanted Mama. I had to step out of sight though so she would stay with Jerry during the father/daughter dance.

What was really funny, was when she got jealous of me holding another baby. I told my friend Lisa to go on and dance with her son for the mother/son dance while I held her baby Isabelle. Isabelle ( a miracle baby - which is another blog for another day), one month younger than Emily, sat in my lap, took her bottle and was such a good baby. Emily kept looking at us and fussing. She didn't like me holding another baby. We of course thought it was funny. I think that this was the first time she had seen me hold another baby and she was not liking it at all.

We had a good time at the dance though. The Campbells DJ'ed and did a great job! I really enjoyed their mix of music.

2008-02-04T23:24:00.000-06:00

Emily is so cute and funny. She has learned to clap her hands when ever we say," Yeah!" and "Good job!". The reason she does this is because, when we feed her, we say "Yeah Emily!" and "Good job!!" whenever she eats really well. Sometimes she'll hit the spoon or turn her head away. She gets distracted too sometimes, so in order to keep her focused on eating, we started cheering her on .
We've been working on "Bye-Bye". She almost has it down. She'll take her right had and move her finger s like she's trying to snap them. Silly girl.
But still no teeth. And no crawling. She has been so close to crawling for so long now. She can get into the position, she'll rock back and forth,and then lay down and roll over. Emily will even scoot a bit on her bottom but not enough to consider it crawling. Sometimes you can leave her alone in a room in one spot, come back a few minutes later and she'll be in the same place all happy and content. Sometimes I blame myself for her not crawling yet. Maybe it's because I pick her up to much. Perhaps I should blame the American Academy of Pediatrics for their "Back to Sleep" campaign. It's because of them that our babies are reaching developemental milestones later and later. Of course , it's probable that the pressure I put on her to crawl, is in fact hindering her desire to do so. I get so frustrated that she is so close but not doing it. In fact sometimes I have to walk away because I start feeling angry about it.

Is there anything I can do to help her? I feel like I have tried so many things. Is this indicative of the kind of parent I'm going to become? A parent that demands perfection, unwilling to accept anything less than the best from her? Whoaa.... okay maybe I just need to take a deep breath and relax. Emily is a Cathey and I bet that is where she gets her stubborn streak from. She'll crawl, but it will be on her terms and not on mine.

I need to focus on what she can do instead of what she can't do. Like her vocabulary. She says, mama, dada, nana, baby, bear and bye. She also blows kisses. Pulling up is still another frustrating issue. She'll pull up on something but only to her knees. But at least she's doing that much.
The teeth, I'm not too worried about because I know I can't do anything about that. She's still cute with out them. And of course it makes nursing easy to without the teeth.

Speaking of nursing, that is still going well, even with the formula supplementation. She does really well on the soy formula. I guess I had better find coupons. It's pretty expensive. But
if that is what she needs, that what she'll get.

I really am blessed though. She is a wonderful, happy, healthy baby. She's beautiful, smart and so funny. I can't wait to watch her grow up. You know, I'll probably look back at the crawling issue and laugh at myself when Emily is 16 and dating boys. I'll really have something to fret over then.

2008-01-29T09:54:00.000-06:00

Emily is now nearly 8 1/2 months old now and we have ,for the most part, been breastfeeding and bottle feeding with expressed breastmilk. When Emily was born, we had to supplement her with a little formula after each feeding because she was jaundiced and my milk wasn't in yet. She only got about 10-15ccs (half an ounce) at each feed. It was so cute watching Jerry syringe feed the formula to her.We did that so she wouldn't have to take a bottle with an artificial nipple. It worked out well in the end. My milk came in about 5 days later and we stopped the formula feeds.

Like I said, Emily is more than 8 mo. old and I am going to start supplementing again with formula. This is only for when she is with a babysitter(s).I still plan on nursing her when I'm with her though. This takes a little pressure off of me to pump extra milk. Up until the last month or so I have had an okay supply of milk in the freezer for her and now that it is dwindling, I feel pressure to pump more milk. Right now, my pumping is not producing enough milk for a single feed. However, when I'm home, she nurses really well. She gets plenty of milk from me, infact sometimes she'll nurse so long that she gets too full and spits up a little.

Anyway, we are going to be supplementing with formula occasionally now. I wish I still had all of those formula coupons and check that I got when she was born. Those would definately come in handy now. Formula is so expensive. Right now we are trying soy formula because the nurse at her doctor's office said breastfed babies do better with it. We'll see. I had a little bit of Enfamil that I let Mom mix with breastmilk and she took that okay. But we'll still try the soy. I went to pick up a sample of it before buying some though. I don't want to go to the store and buy a $25 can of soy formula and she not like it. At least if she doesn't go for the soy, I still have a couple of Enfamil single packs left.

So, if anyone has or knows someone who has formula coupons or checks, could you please help me out? I gave mine away to some one who needed them at the time because nursing was going so well for me. I went ahead and signed up with Enfamil, Nestle Good Start and Similac again hoping that they will send some coupons, samples and stuff. On my other blog, I will post the links to these sights. That way if you or someone you know needs formula you can sign up to recieve, coupons, checks, and samples.
www.savingthemoolah.blogspot.com

Saving the moolah $$$

2008-01-25T00:04:00.000-06:00

Just to let you all know, I've started a new blog dedicated to saving money. Most of it is about the grocery game I play, but there is a lot of other great information about other places to shop and save. Also I want it to be a place where we can share information with each other in regards to things we do to save money in our homes, at the store, when we travel,ect...
I've also added a poll just for fun! I envite you all to take the poll and see where you stand. I think it will be interesting to see how many of us use coupons whether it be occasionally or regularly, or not at all. And you never know what you might find on my new blog. There are links to coupons, stores and more. I plan on having fun with this site and hope that you all will enjoy and use it to save some money yourselves. With this kind of economic situation, we could all benefit from saving money where we can!

http://savingthemoolah.blogspot.com/

I've been playing the Grocery Game for about a year now and have amassed a nice little stockpile of non-perishable groceries. Until recently, I've been limited to the Walgreen's list which has helped a great deal. I tried to use the principles of the list at the commissary at Little Rock AFB but wasn't as successfull, as I wanted to be. Now that there is a list for Kroger, I am all over it ! And because the grocery tax has been cut in half, it is less than the surcharge at the commissary. So why bother paying $3 a gallon for gas and drive 45 minutes to save a few bucks, when I can just drive over to Chenal or Geyer Springs (yes- I shop there too - and they have the gas pumps) . So far this year my average savings has been around 65% . That means for every $100, I actually spend only $35.
The best thing about it is that I'm not cutting back on how many grocery items I'm buying. In fact, I'm buying at least twice as much as I was before. That is how my stockpile has grown to be so massive and why my deep freeze is full. Having this kind of surplus came in so handy when Emily was born. I didn't have to go out to do any shopping until she was about 2 months old. Of course at that point my Mom was concerned that I hadn't left the house exept to go to Dr. appts or show Emily off at work once. I actually didn't go out alone without Jerry to help me with the baby for at least 8 weeks. But because we had everything we needed( just about), I didn't feel like I had to get out and go grocery shopping or anything. Our suppy of paper towels lasted us untill month after I went back to work, and the laundry detergent has lasted us this long. Not to mention, we have been able to supply our emergency preparedness back packs with toiletries and other necessties.
I am all about saving money and this is one of the best ways I can think of. All you have to do is clip the coupons and this list tells you what to do. They make it so easy. I recommend this game to all of my friends who want to cut their grocey bills or save some money. Besides, I think it is actually fun. I get so excited on Sundays when I check out the list. It's like a little bit of Christmas every weekend. What do I get to buy this time?? What items will be free?? Will some of my favorites be on there?
When Emily gets older, I definately plan on her helping me. Besides learning the value of a dollar, she will learn math, reading and financial responsibility.
In fact if you have school aged children, get them involved for precisely those reasons.

Here's the link: (don't forget to credit lingerdoodle@comcast.net for sending you- cuz I will get free weeks of the game!!)

http://www.thegrocerygame.com/

2008-01-21T20:07:00.000-06:00

Emily is such a blessed little baby! Jerry and I are so blessed too! We have the best babysitters in the entire world!!!!!

Megan, Brittany, and Jessica have been there for Emily (and us), before she was even born. Words can not describe the gratitude and love that we feel for these girls and their wonderful parents Pete and Dodie. To say that they provide a safe, and caring environment for Emily while she in their care , is at the very least an vague understatement of what they do for us. I just pray that my words can do them justice.

Whenever I drop Emily off at their house, the girls are always so happy to see her. The great thing is that Emily is always happy to see them too! She never cries when I turn to leave, instead she smiles as though she is ready to have some fun. Knowing that she is having fun and is so happy to be there, gives me no reason to feel guilty about going to work. In fact on those days when I'm running behind schedule and feeling frazzled, once Emily is in thier arms, I feel a little more at ease.

Once Emily is in of thier hands,or whenvever they finish fussing over who gets to hold her first, the afternoon is full of fun activities. They of course play all sorts of fun baby games with her like peek-a-boo. When it's nice out, they put her in the stroller and go for walks around the block. They also have fun taking pictures of her. Recently they gave us a CD with pictures they had taken of her while they were babysitting. When I saw them, I almost cried because they are so beautiful. They captured her sweet babyface and her cheerful personality. It felt like Mother's day because what they gave me was a most cherishable gift- pictures of my baby that I will have forever. Not to mention, these pictures show just how much fun Emily and they Megan, Brittany, and Jess, have together.

Here are some of the priceless photos for you all to enjoy!

Megan, Brittany and Jessica are CPR certified, good Christian girls, very smart, wholesome and caring. And it's because of wonderful parents, Pete and Dodie that they were brought up to be this way. In fact Jerry and I look up to them in so many ways. Just think- 3 teenage daughters in one house and they all manage to stay sane. How do they do it???? I imagine a lot of love, prayer, faith and patience might have something to do with it.

Megan,Brittany, and Jess- we love you and appreciate you taking such great care of Emily!

Emily is 8 months old today!!!

2008-01-18T22:30:00.000-06:00

Yeah!!! Our little Emily Ruth is 8 months old today! She is doing great too!! Today she weighed in at 151/2 lbs- almost double her birth weight. Emily is doing a good job self feeding. I gave her some cut up green beans yesterday and little bits of turkey stroganoff (ground turkey,pasta, and peas). She picked the pieces up off of the high chair tray and put them in her mouth. She also feeds herself graham crackers, Cheerios, and stuff like that. We've been working on the sippy cup and she has become quite proficient in using it. Now, I can put her in high chair, give her a cracker and some diluted juice in her sippy cup, and get things done around the house.

We're still nursing too- which I am happy about. I was a little concerned about going back to work ,having to pump, and keep up with Emily's demands. But so far everything has worked out. My goal is to nurse her for the first year at least. I have considered continuing nursing her until she's 18 months, but if something happens and I can't do it for that long, I'll be content with the fact that we breastfed for at least the first year.

Emily's doing great at bed time now. The bed time ritual, I think , has been the key. We feed her really well, give her a bath, read some books, have a little quiet play time( or we nurse if she is fussing), a bed time prayer and then we lay her down. Sometimes she will fuss for a minute other times she falls asleep in our arms. But we do this every night. Emily will usually sleep from about 9p to 7 or 7:30a.

You can tell she is well rested because when I go to check on her she is usually awake and very happy. Once in a while she will still be sleeping so I let her sleep a little more. Our mornings are pretty routine too. We get up at 7:30-ish, change her diaper and nurse. Then she plays while I have breakfast. We play together until she goes down for her morning nap which is usually 9:30 or 10. Emily tends to take really good morning naps. She sleeps for 1-2 hours.

Then we get on with our day. Sometimes we even get to go out and see Nana!!!

Just think in a few more months I will have to start planning Emily's 1st birthday party! I can't wait!

2008-01-12T20:22:00.000-06:00

Jerry ,Nana, and I all have something to be excited about. Emily is now saying, "da-da","na-na", and "ma-ma", and all sorts of variations of those. Of course she uses them indiscriminately, but it so fun to hear her randomly babble.

Emily is getting closer to crawling. She goes from sitting to hands and knees, then rocks back and forth a few times before laying down and rolling over (and over and over sometimes). She will roll from one corner of a room to the other. We now have to be super careful about what we leave in the floor. If she sees something she wants she will go after it. Emily is also trying to pull herself up. We lowered the crib already in anticipation of her pulling up, but I 'm sure there is still more child proofing that we need to do. I'm going to start this week. If anyone has any suggestions about where to start, let me know.

2008-01-07T15:38:00.000-06:00

Maybe one of my resolutions should have been to blog a little more frequently. But then again, with all of the other resolutions where could I have fit that one in???

My little Emily is quite the loquacios one- especially during church. Now she says "da-da-da" all the time. She has her variations of da-da including one that sounds like "daddy", because she also says "di-di-di". Another version is,"a-da, a-da, a-da". She'll repeat a long string of one of these five or six times, stop and then do it again. During Sunday school, Emily was being very vocal with the "da-da-da" 's, and Dr. Goddard had to stop his lesson for a moment(but he was smiling and trying not to laugh). I was so embarrassed, that all I could think of to say was "She's definately feeling the spirit right now!"

Emily is such a happy and social baby, that people don't believe me when I say she's having a fussy day (which thank goodness isn't very often). I keep thinking that any day now she is going to get some teeth. So any fussies I usually attribute to that. However still no teeth. Everyday,Jerry and I look at and even feel her gums. But there's nothing new going on in there.

One of the newest things she is doing is rocking back and forth on all her hands and knees. She will go from sitting to the crawling position and just rock for a minute then roll over. I'm willing to bet that she is still trying to figure out how to get going forward. Once she does though, watch out kitty cats!!! Emily will be chasing them all through the house. She loves the kitties!

Some other things Emily has been doing lately is clapping and blowing kisses. It's so cute to watch her blow kisses. She is big into imitating us right now. We are having so much fun with her now!!

I should have named her Joy because that is the one word that really describes her. She gives us so much joy. I have to confess that I even go around the house singing that song "I got the Joy, Joy, Joy, Joy Down in My Heart..." some days.

Life is good!

2007-12-29T19:49:00.001-06:00

Well the new year is just around the corner andI'm psyched up about my resolutions. They're the typical weight loss and money management resolutions, but I'm determined to stick to it this year! I'm also going to resolve to better manage my time, read my scriptures regularly, and to become more self sufficient(especially when Jerry is out of town).

Our plans for New Years Eve are to watch the Cotton Bowl special on tv, eat a little fondue, ring in the New Year and go to bed. The church is having a party that night that starts at 9:30 but we don't want to get Emily out that late or get a babysitter for that late either. Emily,by the way, will not be staying up with us. We just got her back to sleeping through the night and don't want to mess that up. So little miss Emily will party with us until about 9:30 when we say our prayers with her and lay her down for the night.

Well good luck in 2008 everyone!

Happy Holidays!!!

2007-12-24T08:33:00.000-06:00

Happy Birthday!

Merry Christmas everyone!!! We have definately had a big, wonderful holiday and a fabulous birthday! As most of you know today is my 31st birthday. My adorable husband has started a great tradition of making my birthday cake for me. He does such a wonderful job! You can always tell that all the effort came from his heart.

Today was such a busy day and we had a lot to cram in. First we got up had our breakfast and Jerry let me open some birthday presents. Then I went to the Christian Dior counter at Dillards to have my make up done for the day. Jerry and Emily helped me out by doing some last minute shopping while I got pampered. My husband always has fun watching how other women just flock to Emily and make a big fuss over her. It just cracks him up!

After all that fun, we went to my Mom's (Emily's Nana) for more. This being Emily's first Christmas, we wanted to capture every moment of it. I've already downloaded the pics to my MySpace page: www.myspace.com/lingerdoodle . They are in my pics as my X-mas 2007 album. Anyway, Emily got passed around to everyone from Nana and Aunt Anita to Aunt Tina and Aunt Angela. Finally toward the end of the evening Great Grandma got to hold her for a while. Even her cousin Jason whose 13 held her in his lap while she opened up her first presents.

Her cousins Rylee and Ryann had a lot of fun with her as well. Ryann knows just how to make her smile. Rylee was super sweet with her too. They seemed to have a great time playing together!

Oh the food!! In my family, food is a big deal. We have good food and a lot of it. I probably gained about 10 lbs that evening. Tina made a german roast and bread dumplings. Mom made taco salad. Jerry and I brought cheese dip, cresent rolls, and cake. And not to mentions all sorts of snack foods we all brought. Emily loved the bread dumplings her Aunt Tina made. She just couldn't eat her dumpling fast enough!

Then after we ate our fill of the the food, we sat down in the living room and watched a video about the Nativity. It was a short video made by the LDS church. We all felt warm and fuzzy (or at least I did) after that because it reminded us of why we were there celebrating. It was because not only my birthday but the celebration of the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ.

After the video, Uncle Brian got to be the "Santa" and hand out all of the gifts. He did it so fast, my camera couldn't keep up! But I have several great shots of people opening gifts. Emily immediatetly realized that the presents in front of her were hers. She (with a little help from Jason) tore right into them. She would get this real surprised look on her face when she saw what was under the paper.

I thought this was a cute picture of Emily and Great-Grandma. It's a wonderful reminder of the importance of families being together. Also, the two of them are just so cute!!!

After all of that we came home and exchanged gifts again. Jerry and I decided to practice being Santa Clause that night, so we put Emily's presents under the tree and filled her stocking. The next morning, she found a baby sized kitchen, and foam alphabet mat under the tree. We gave her the stocking and pulled out a few more small toys for her. She played all morning with them. Hopefully Emily can entertain herself know for a few minutes and give my left shoulder a break now and then (lol).

Emily is 7 months old today!!!!

2007-12-18T17:25:00.000-06:00

I can't believe it! My little baby is seven months old now!! Seven months agot today, I was on day two of labor. Pitocin was given, and my water broken but she wanted to stay put. After 27 hours of labor and 6 IV bags of lactated ringers and pitocin, Emily Ruth was born.

She is such a little ham now. Emily knows when I'm taking a picture of her. Cell phone, camera- she knows both take pictures. She stops what she's doing and smiles for me. We did the pictures with Santa Clause a few weeks ago. She did really well and didn't cry. We were at the ghetto Walmart with ghetto Santa but the picture turned out well so we are pleased. Besides, it was free. I didn't want to pay a bunch of money for a picture because I didn't know if she would cry or not.

Any day now Emily is going to get up on her knees and start crawling. When she is on her tummy, if you give her something to push off, she will use her legs and scoot a bit. I have a feeling when she does take off, I will be spending a lot of time chasing after her.

Feeding Emily is a lot of fun too now. She can feed herself Cheerios and crackers. That has helped me out when I need to get some work done around the house. I just roll the high chair into whichever room I'm in and put her in it with some Cheerios on the tray. She just goes to town. If I put about 10 of them on her tray, I usually only find one or two on the floor. She's not too messy with them. Boy does she get excited about those Cheerios. She absolutely loves them.

Of course sleeping is a problem but Jerry and I are working on that. We've been putting her to bed awake and let her cry for a bit. It's only about 3 or 4 minutes that she'll cry, but they are the longes it 3 or 4 minutes ever. I'm not enjoying this very much, but I know it's something we need to try. I hate hearing her cry. It breaks my heart. I miss the days when I could nurse her to sleep or rock her to sleep without it being a battle. Maybe once we get going in the right direction, it will get easier.

I will post again soon. I've gotta go get some rest.

Now I'm cookin' with gas!!!

2007-12-17T22:49:00.000-06:00

Yeah!! My new dual fuel range is finally installed!! It has been sitting here in my kitchen,taking up space since Wednesdayof last week. The plumber came today to install a new gas line to the stove. Once the gas line was put in, it should have been a breeze to hook up the stove. There were a few kinks to work out. For starters, Jerry had to saw off a portion of the countertop in order for the stove to fit. Then some parts were lost and we had to call Jenn-Air to get replacements. The on ly other issue is that the top drawer closest to the range can no longer be pulled out. Gosh darn it. I guess we will just have to remodel the whole kitchen. (Yipee!!) Did I mention that they cracked the laminate on the counter top as well? So I now get to pick out new counter tops!

Remodeling the kitchen was high on our list of priorities already,but now it's at the very top! Where to begin?? Well in order to not break the bank or rob Emily's college fund, we have decided to restain the cabinets ourselves. As for the countertops, I would love to have Silestone. However at this point in time, we can't really afford to go that route. Instead, we are just going to go with a prettier laminate. If anyone has any inexpensive ideas, please share them with me. I thought about broken tiles or just tiles, but Jerry isn't too crazy about that. I think we will do the back splash in tiles though. And don't forget the light fixtures, sink and faucet.

Did I mention how well this range cooks? Oh my gosh- it's incredible. I grilled some steaks and veggie kabobs on the grill for dinner tonight. Let me just say that I need a little more practice but it was fun! The oven is big enough to fit my roasting pan correctly and everything cooks so evenly. I am going to do a lot of holiday baking over the next week so everyone needs to be ready to fill their bellies.

Maybe one day I can be the next Iron Chef!

What am I going to do with my Emily Ruth???

2007-12-16T18:13:00.000-06:00

Okay, I was mistaken in my belief that Emily was once again sleeping through the night. Apparently that is a random event now. Our once perfect sleep pattern that started when she was about 1 1/2 mo lasted until she was 6mo. For the last several weeks, our bedtime routine has become a battle of wills. At first we thought maybe she was teething or maybe her ears were infected- something common like that. We quickly exhausted the list of possible problems: the holidays, messed up schedule, nightmares, growthspurt,teeth, ears, a cold, ect.... While we have notice that indeed she has gone through a growth spurt, that alone can't possibly account for the number of sleepless nights we have suffered through. She had been a little sniffly so we used a humidifier and that helped once or twice. We put her in the swing. That helped once or twice. We used the humidifier and the swing. That combo also worked once or twice. Maybe it has something to do with the way we put her down at night. Most of the time she falls asleep at the breast or bottle and then we put her down. She use to stay asleep. But now everytime her head touches the crib she wakes up. We'll pick her up and finish feeding or rocking her and put her back down . She just won't have it. I've thought about Ferberizing, but I'm just not strong enough for that (yet). We keep saying that we are going to try putting her down awake and let her fall asleep on her own. It hasn't happened yet. But I think that is what we need to be doing.

If that isn't bad enough, Emily now has conjunctivitis (pinkeye) in both eyes. Poor baby. Her eyes had been pretty watery for a day or two but I didn't think anything of it. Thursday, when she woke up from her afternoon nap, her eyes were pink and the lids were puffy and covered in green gunk. I immediately took her over to see Dodie ( Mom with all the answers) across the street because she would know what was up. Right away, she knew it was pinkeye. So I called the Dr's office and they called in a scrip for Vigamox eyedrops. Now we are giving her eye drops three times a day for the next week. Fun.

Even though she has pinkeye, you can't see it in the Christmas pictures we took. We had to take them at home because we ran out of time to do it at JCPenny's. Since Thanksgiving, we have been on the go with church, work, physical therapy, sinus infections, shopping for x-mas, decorating for x-mas. Jerry has also been traveling a couple of days a week. It's been hard to keep up with everything while Jerry's gone but I do it.

Anyway, Emily had fun with her X-mas pictures. We kept it simple and just put her in her Christmas dress in front of the tree and train set. Then we downloaded all the pictures to Walgreens. It was actually a good deal. We picked how much and what size of each picture we wanted. They were ready for pick up the next morning. Pretty convenient. I will probably do that with more of her pictures from now on.

Here are some of the pictures we took.

Emily is getting closer to crawling. She will be sitting up and then go to her tummy. From there she usually hesitates a minute to think and then she rolls over one way or the other. If you put your hands behind her feet to give her something to push against, she'll scoot a bit. She'll be crawling soon enough.

Well that's it for now!

Check back soon for sleep updates or if you have any suggestions please email me or leave a comment. Thanks!!

2007-12-05T15:05:00.000-06:00

Yeah !! No More colds, coughs or sniffles!!!!!

Finally, my sinus infection is almost gone!! And Emily is back to sleeping through the night once again!! The past couple of weeks have been a blur of sinus congestion, lack of sleep, and hum of the sewing machine.

In the midst of being sick and not getting any sleep, we had Emily blessed at church. Despite all the obstacles, it was the most joyous event ever!!!!! My Mom and I made Emily's blessing gown. Jerry helped me cut out the pattern and fabric. We both also coughed,snotted, and sneezed the whole time.Mom did all of the sewing. I also picked out all of the fabric, lace and embellishments. Mom put it all together. My Mom did a fabulous job! The gown was so beautiful!

The best part of the blessing, was my Dad's prayer for her and his testimony. My Dad did the blessing. Our friends, Terry Webster, Elder Waters , Elder Cross and Uncle Brian stood in as well and helped hold her. His blessing of Emily was so full of love for her and for the Lord. It was such a special blessing. Even our neighbor Rhonda came to watch. With so much love and all of the wonderful priesthood power it was a beautiful ceremony.We got some pictures of the Bro. an Sis. Webster with our parents which was so neat because they use to all go to church together in the 70s. They were really good friends back then.

We've also started decorating for Christmas. Our tree is up and lights on the outside of the house are up! But I need to do so much more. Being Emily's first Christmas, I want to go absolutely nuts!!! However, I need to have some restraint because in all reality, she won't know what's going on or even remember. At least our shopping now is 75% done now. Jerry and I still have to shop for each other though and I feel like time is running out. But not to worry. Jerry is going to be out of town for a few days this week so I should have time to shop for him then. Ijust hope that with all the shopping and the get togethers, I can keep Emily on a decent schedule and feed her properly. It's one thing to feed her turkey ,dressing and cranberry sauce off of my plate but entirely another to feed her cookies,crackers, and juice while running around like a chicken with my head cut off!

Emily seems to be enjoying all of the lights and sounds of the holiday season. She loves to hear people singing Christmas carols, especially Nana when she sings "Deck the Halls". Emily loves the "fa-la-la-la-la" part. We also have one of those dancing moose things sings when you push the button. Our is "Bust -a-Moose" and he sings "Bust-a Move". His antlers light up and his hands jingle some bells. Emily gets so excited when I turn him on. She smiles and squeals real loud.

Another thing Emily enjoys is her toes. One of the cute things she does is holding them while she sleeps. She's done this ever since she could grab her toes. It's so funny to walk into her nursery and look down at her while she's asleep and see her with one foot in the air and another foot in her hand with the opposite hand's thumb in her mouth. I'm pretty sure I have an ultrasound picture or video of her doing this in the womb. That would explain why my lower belly felt like it was stretched so tight all the time that last trimester.

We are also working with Emily on trying to crawl. The closest she's come to it is sitting up, going to her tummy to get a toy and reaching out for it. After a few seconds of that she just rolls over to one side or the other. She'll crawl but it may be another couple of weeks. We are not giving up.

A Wonderful Thanksgiving!!!

2007-11-23T20:58:00.000-06:00

Well, I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. Ours was absolutely wonderful!!! It was the Thanksgiving that I have always dreamed of having. My family and Jerry's family were here. Little ones were running around everywhere. The food was great and the company even better! Everything went really well. I just hope that the rest of our families had as great a time as Jerry, Emily and I had!

Speaking of Emily, it was her first Thanksgiving! She was so cute in her big bow and little pink dress! Now that she has been eating food for a while, I let her try a little of everything. She ate mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potato casserole, cranberry sauce, dressing, turkey, and pumpkin pie with cool whip. If it was soft or we could mash it up, she ate it. She really enjoyed it too! Emily ate several bites of it all. She did get a little tired of everything so I would take her upstairs once in a while and nurse her. For the most part though, she did great!

My brother Josh and his wife Kim came to visit us this week with their adorable children, Paxton and Lorelei. They are wonderful parents. Paxton and Lorelei are so smart too. Kim and Josh have done a great job working with their kids and have set the bar for nurturing the intellectual abilities of young children. I look at them, see what their kids can do and know that Emily can do the same things if I work with her. Right now, Lorelei has a good vocabulary, knows animals and their sounds, and sings part of "Ring around the Roses" and falls down. She is so cute too. She makes the gestures for "If You're Happy and You know it!". She's absolutely darling at 19mo. Paxton has been taking Tae Kwon Do. So he counts in Korean in addition to the Spanish he as been learning. He's been counting to a Hundred for a while now. He is a very loquacious little 3 year old boy.

My brother Jon and his wife Angela, also came over for the day. They are so helpful and very down to earth. We get to see them more often because they live closer to us. And for that we are so thankful. They have two beautiful girls, Rylee and Ryann. Ryann is so stylish and fun! She takes dance classes and is a very talented dancer. Rylee is a cuter miniature version of my little brother Jon. She has his temper and his manerisms. But that is what makes her so adorable.

My Mom, I think had the best time of all because all of her children and grandchildren were together. We got a great picture of all of us. And of course Mom got emotional. But who wouldn't be? Dad enjoyed himself as well. He was so happy. Even Grandma had a good time. I have great pictures of Grandma and Emily together. I guess she's actually Great- Grandma to Emily.

Tina and her son Steven (Beefy) even came to dinner. Tina is an amazing woman of many talents, one of which is cooking. She made some yummy deserts. Steven even made his delicious apple cake. She is a great sister-in-law and we are so fortunate to have her, James. Steven and Jason in our lives.

After everyone ate their fill of Turkey and all the trim, and we took more pictures, the families left. Emily took a short nap and Jerry and I sat down and propped our feet up. Later we went for a walk and visited our neighbors and wished them a happy Thanksgiving as well. Emily was so cute bundled up in her fur coat! It was so cold outside, but it felt nice. It was a the perfect ending to a perfect day!!

Now,it is time to get ready for Christmas. I can't wait to take Emily to see Santa Clause!!!! I wonder how she will react? Will she scream? Will she smile and laugh?? We'll find out soon enough. I look forward to our families getting together again for the X-mas. This year we are all going to be at Mom's on X-mas Eve.This is also my birthday so it means even more to me to have everyone there.

Anyway since this is my Thanksgiving post, let me end by sharing what I am thankful for. I am thankful for my fabulous husband Jerry, and my perfect baby Emily, my family and friends, our home and neighbors, and the lifestyle that we live. We may not be driving fancy cars or live in a mansion but we are comfortable and not doing without a thing. I am also grateful for the men and women who have given their lives and who are serving over seas, for preserving our rights to live with an abundance of freedoms including our right to worship as we wish. Thank you to Matt , our cousin who is in Iraq right now, fighting for us.

2007-11-17T19:48:00.000-06:00

It has been a busy week at the Cathey house! I worked late Monday night. I hadn't been able to sleep very well a few nights before and that night was no exception. I ended up going to sleep around 3am. Emily and I woke around 7am to get ready for our craft day at church that started at 9 o'clock Tuesday morning. We had so much fun that we lost track of time. I didn't get to take a nap before work but it worked out to be a good thing. When I came home at 10:45 I crashed.

But Enrichment (craft day) was so fun. I made some magnets with the glass rocks you put in vases, and did some glass etching. Now that I know how to do the etching and magnets, I can make some pretty neat Christmas gifts! I was even inspired to start sewing again. I had a few projects to finish but I didn't around to those until Friday.

Also this week, we had the carpets cleaned and the living room painted. Jerry and the missionaries did a great job painting the living room. It is no longer plain and boring, but a pretty light blue color (light blue). So with all of that going on, our house was a mess. But we've been able to clean it up and put it all back together.

Emily has been so wonderful through all of this. She is so content unless she is tired. Even when she is hungry she doesn't fuss very much. I probably don't let her get very hungry anyway. We are always trying to feed her. Somedays she eats quite a lot and somedays not so much. Now we are trying finger foods like Cheerios and Gerber fruit puffs. Emily likes the Cheerios but would rather have Mommy feed them to her. But I think she does feed herself once in a while. I put some pieces of cut up cooked carrots on her hight chair tray saw her pick one up. I left the room at that point but when I came back, she had a little bit on her chin. Whether or not it acutally made it into her mouth, I don't know. But at least she's trying.

We've also been starting her on the sippy cup. Emily understands the concept. There is something yummy in there and she knows how to get it out. But she will only occasionally pick it up by the handles. She doesn't hold her bottle by herself yet. Jerry and I are working on that. I need to remind her sitters about that as well. I don't give the bottles myself usually because I'm at work. So it's up to Jerry and the sitters to encourage her independance. The only problem (not really), is that her sitters love her so much. I don't think that she spends much time sitting on the floor. But that's another blog for another day. But she does have the best baby sitters ever!

We are in for a fun week ! My brother Josh and his wife Kim are here with their kids Paxton who's 3 and Lorelei who's 19mo. We are planning a bunch of fun activities with them. I will have so much to blog about! Thanksgiving is going to be a blast especially since we are having it here at my house!

So I better get busy and make the house look great!

2007-11-09T12:48:00.000-06:00

Twelve days and counting until Thanksgiving. My husband and I have a laundry list of home improvements we want to do before then. We decided to narrow it down to just two main projects. First we are going to have the carpets steam cleaned. Second, we are going to paint and fix up the living room. We can do that in a week I think. We are also going to be child-proofing. I'm so glad that my brother Josh and his wife Kim are coming so that they can give us some guidance on this. If Emily is going to be as precosious as I think she will be, we will need all the help we can get to keep her safe around the house.

Speaking of Emily, she did something the other night that scared the daylights out of me. We went to Bro. and Sis. Webster's house for dinner on Wednesday night. We had a great time and ate some great food. It was wonderful. We came home and were changing clothes to go out to the gym but decided it would be too late to go by the time we bathed Emily and got her ready for bed. Emily was in her jammies all nice and warm, sitting on my lap with her fingers in her mouth. Apparently she had her fingers so far into her mouth that she gagged herself and she threw up everywhere! I was so upset about my poor baby! She was crying, so I cried too. I was so scared because I didn't know what else to do besides lean her forward and just let her heave . After we got her cleaned up she went to sleep on me. I didn't want to let go of her. Thirty minutes later she got sick again. But not very much and I think it was because we gave her a few sips of water after that first episode( we were concerned that she might have a bad taste in her mouth after getting sick). So I guess we shouldn't have done that. Anyhow, I let her sleep next to me in bed and Jerry slept in the guest room. I woke up everytime she made a peep. Boy, I was ready to roll her over so she wouldn't aspirate anything. But she slept really good- better than I did. And of course she was okay the next day. My nerves are still on edge from that. So if any of you moms out there have had their kids do the same thing, please let me know how you handled it and if it's common for babies to do.

On a much happier note, I am having so much fun feeding Emily now. I have been giving her babyfood of course, but now I'm trying little bits of bread thats been smushed up in my fingers. Not being the best mom I could be, I've let her kind of gum and chew on a few McDonalds french fries- but I would not let her eat them. She's had yogurt too and loves it. I've been giving her broken Cheerios. They are a hit! I wanted to let her try and pick them up with her fingers but she is still working on that pinscer grasp. Emily will open her mouth and want me to put them in. She chews and gums on the pieces until they dissolve. The great thing is- they are not too messy. Just give her one at a time and she enjoys them!

Tomorrow, we are going to go for a walk on the "Big Dam Bridge". Like every mom, I think they could have chosen a better name for that bridge. Oh well, Jerry and I will tell Emily that it's "The Big Bridge". It is going to be a great day for a walk and I'm sure there will be plenty of picture opportunities.

I have a favor to ask of everyone. Could you all keep my Josh, Kim, Paxton and Lorelei, in your prayers? The kids are sick and Josh and Kim are exhausted, I'm sure. So let's all pray that the kids get better soon and Josh and Kim will get some much needed rest and relaxation.

Good night and God bless!

2007-11-06T23:20:00.000-06:00

I can't believe that it's November already. Jerry and I still have a few Halloween things to put away because now it's time to decorate for Thanksgiving. Emily needs some first Thanksgiving stuff- like a bib, and a stuffed turkey (toy -not the food). We still have a couple of weeks to find them.

Speaking of Emily, she is doing so much right now!!!! She has been sitting pretty well for while and of course rolling. But with the rolling, she would only do it when we weren't around. For example, I would put her on her tummy in the crib and leave the room to go do something. I would come back a few minutes later and she would be on her back, sucking her thumb and smiling at me. We would never catch her in the act. Just the other day though, while I was at work, Jerry was playing with her. He had her on her belly and he left the room. When he came back he saw her roll over. He says that Emily just smiled at him . Since then, she's done it for us several times. She's rolling both ways too- from belly to back and back to belly.

That's not all she's doing. She has started noticing the cats a lot more. Emily gets so excited when one of the cats walks in the in room. If the cat doesn't come to see her she gets so mad!! Sometimes they will let her touch them. Other times they run the other way. I wish I could warn the kitties that Emily will be crawling soon. Maybe they could find some good hiding places.

Of course all Emily has to do to scare them away is start her shrieking and growling. It is so funny to listen to her. At first we thought she was crying and throwing a fit (She does that too now). But she was as happy as can be. We've got a couple of video clips of her screaming sessions but for the safety of everyones ears I will refrain from uploading those. But for now, just try to imagine the sound a pterodactyl (you know the dinosaur) would make and you'd be getting pretty close.

Even though the noise can be quite bothersome (especially when I'm on the phone), I am still so very grateful to hear it. It means that she is alive and developing normally. She has a healthy set of lungs apparently and that means a lot to me. I am so grateful to God for blessing us with Emily. In fact, when making out our christmas wish lists, I can't think of anything else in my life that I could ever want or need. I already have it all: A wonderful husband, a nice cozy home, a beautiful baby, and so many friends and family members. I am truly blessed!!!

On that note, I am heading to bed. Good night all and may God bless you as he has me.

2007-10-31T22:16:00.000-05:00

Halloween is here! We're as ready as we'll ever be. Finally we have our jack-o-latern all carved, candy bought, and of course costumes laundered and ready. Of course, I'm not dressing up. I am still fat even though, some people say that I've lost some weight. My body and mind are just not wanting to cooperate. I try to get to the gym but only make it there about once a week. I'm not the only one who need to work out more often. But I won't name any names because he knows who he is....... Oh well, it's only me who can motivate myself to get back into those size 6, maybe 8 jeans. In fact, I have a pair of size 8 jeans in hanging in my closet, in a very visible place , that are suppose to encourage me to make more of an effort to lose these pounds.

But enough about me. I know you all want to see and hear about Emily. She looked so cute in her cow costume for Trick or Treat Streat in Lakewood Village. We had a great time with Jon, Angela, Rylee, and Ryann. Ryann was so adorable as Audrey Hepburn. She did the Breakfast at Tiffany's look. Such a glamorous little lady. Little Rylee was a cute yellow M&M candy. Even Nana put on a fun little hat. I wish I'd remembered to take my camera.

Today was a busy day too. Gymboree was so fun this morning! All the babies were dressed up in halloween outfits. There was a skunk, a ladybug, and a skeleton. Emily and another cute baby were twinkies. They both had on Carter's My First Halloween. After class, we went home and had a visitor. Sister Jones from church came by to see us. We had a nice visit with her. After she left we started working on dinner for the missionaries. I made chicken spaghetti, salad, garlic bread and a chocolate cake. It all turned out yummy. (There goes my diet!) I sent most of the leftovers home with the missionaries. They were happy about that! Our visit with them was wonderful. We watched a church video and Jerry discussed scriptures with them. We also kept answering the door for tons of trick or treaters. For about three hours it was steady. Every two minutes the doorbell would ring and there would be a group of about 3 or 4,sometimes more.

Despite the almost consant interruption, we had a good visit.

Emily is down for the night and Jerry just went to bed too. So now it's time for me to go night-night as well!

2007-10-24T20:38:00.000-05:00

Oh what a big day we have had here in the Cathey family!!
First of all, Jerry recieved the Army Commendation or ARCOM award today! Emily and I went to the awards ceremony to watch him and his fellow soldiers recieve their medals and certificates. Jerry recieved his award for going to New Orleans and providing communicatiotns support during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. I am so proud of him and the others in his unit! God has definately blessed me with a brave and wonderful man! He is my hero!!!
Secondly, we took Emily out to Boo at the Zoo. We all had such a great time! Emily really seemed to enjoy the lights and the people. We saw the river otter, porcupines and elephants, cammels, and a bush dog. We even went into the bat house and saw a pair of bats sleeping upside down. When Jerry mentioned that the little bowls below them contained blood, I decided it was time to leave the bat house -fast! Jerry and I took turns holding Emily and trick or treating the little tents they have set up around the zoo. Emily is too young to understand the concept of course but we had fun with her anyway. She did really well! She didn't get over stimulated or cranky at all. I think because we fed her before we left ,arrived early, and didn't stay too long, that was the key to having an enjoyable evening with our little pumpkin.

Last but definately not least- brace yourselves- Emily is started sitting by herself!!!!! She had been sitting before but only for one or two seconds and was real wobbly. But tonight after we got home from Boo at the Zoo, she did it. I sat her up on the changing table to change her out of her pumpkin costume and into her pjs. Like I have been doing, I supported her for a moment and then let go. I expected her to lean to the side or forward, but she remained steady. I kept waiting and waiting for her to topple over but she didn't. So we took her downstairs and put her on a blanket with some blocks. We sat her up again and sure enough , she sat there and played with her blocks! I am so proud of my big baby!!
Emily has a new favorite food too -yogurt. Yesterday evening while eating some yogurt myself, she was sitting in my lap reaching for it. Just for the fun of it, I put a little dab of it in her mouth. She sat there with it in her mouth for a second before she swallowed. Then she wanted more. She kept opening her mouth for more of it. I couldn't get it to her fast enough. Jerry got on the internet to research if it was alright for her to have it at five months and everything he found said it okay since she was already eating baby food. I fed it to her again at the awards ceremony this morning so she would be quiet. And it worked! I am just leery of feeding her too much of it though. But at least it provides her with calcium, protein and vitamin D.

I gotta go. Today has worn me out! Tomorrow we will have more fun at Lakewood Village's Trick or Treat Street!

2007-10-21T23:17:00.000-05:00

Another weekend has flown by. I'm grateful though because it was my weekend to work. We had a great crew this weekend and the time went by so fast. I wish all my shifts were like that. But of course, most of the time they're not. At least I have Jerry to brighten my days when I do work. He is always so go about sending me pictures and movies to my phone. Sunday, he sent me a video of our neighbor Emily who is about 8 or 9, making our little Emily laugh. Big Emily was pretending to be a puppy dog, and little Emily just thought it was hilarious. If I can find a way to download the video from my phone to the blog, I'll share it with you all.

Finally, the weather is getting cooler and it feels like fall. I got to dress Emily in one of her fall outfits today. This one is so cute. I got it from Angela and it still had the tags on it because Rylee outgrew it before she could wear it. Emily will probably only get to wear the jacket part because the pants aren't long enough anymore because she just went through a growth spurt.

That's actually good timing though. I have been trying to put away her summer 3-6 mo. clothes for a while but it has been in the mid to upper 80's here. So now if I wait another week or two I can just put away all of her 3-6 mo. clothes since she has pretty much out grown them.

Jerry and I want to take Emily out to do a few fun Halloween things this week. Thursday, there is a trick or treat (shopping for Mommy) thing at Lakewood Village and on Friday, we are going to do Boo at the Zoo. She may not get much out of it this year but Jerry and I will have a blast!

My First Blog

2007-10-19T00:17:00.000-05:00

Hi everyone! I am so excited about starting this blog. Now I can let my friends and family know what's new with us, but I can also share some of the things that Emily, Jerry and I have done said or thought about. Also, I can have some "me" time after Jerry and Emily go to bed.

Yesterday, Emily was five months old. Can you believe it? So to celebrate, we went to the Schaefer and Collins Farm's Pumpkin Patch. We took lots of pictures, showed her the goats and chickens, and of course the pumpkins. Jerry says it is still to warm here for us to carve a pumkin because it will rot, so we will wait a few more days to get one. Any way, Emily babbled all the way home. I suppose she was telling us how much fun she had.

Emily is amazed by everything these days. She is doing so much right now. She's eating baby food,sitting propped up by her arms, rolling over , and trying too scoot around on the floor. You should see her trying to go forward- her little bottom up in air. But her arms aren't quite strong enough yet to help her get going forward.

Jerry is finished traveling for little while which is nice. I'm trying to get us in the habit of doing more things together as a family. For instance, going to church, going out for walks, and just anything that we can do together- all three of us.

That's all for now. I'll post again soon!