Antibiotics, Animals, and Awamen

Neely is suffering from yet another sinus infection, we learned last Friday. It is just no fun when your little one is ill and all you want to do is twitch your nose and POOF! they are all better again and can go outside and ride around in their new princess car they got for their birthday. We made that mistake last Thursday. The poor girl hadn't gotten to ride in it since her party (the 13th), and we had been waiting for a (semi) pleasant day to let her take it for a spin. So we come home from work early and go get her from school and bundle her up and hit the road. Well, more like the yard and the alley behind our house, but you know what I mean. She did have a blast, even though every few minutes she would stop and scoot over to the passenger side and insist that one of us drive (Derek took her up on the offer, too bad I don't have pictures of it, it was quite a sight!). She started coughing later that night, and now we are kicking ourselves hard, and all we did was let our little girl have fun with her birthday present. Oh well, there's always spring...

Anyways, the doctor put her on amoxicillan, which works very well for her, and she loves the bubble gum flavor. Well, this time, it was not bubble gum flavored, nor was it pink. I still have not determined what the flavor is, I think I'm close to settling on some sort of citrus, but not sure which one. So, now my perfect little medicine taker puts up a huge fight when she sees me coming with the bottle. Can't say I blame her, the stuff is nasty. She is being a champ through all of it though, and I am pretty sure she is on the mend.

Yesterday, I took Neely to the Livestock Show at the Agri-Center. Our main reason was to go visit with Derek, as he was working in the concession stand along with some members of our church. She was in awe of all of the animals, and she tried really hard to climb into one of the hog's pens. That child is not at all afraid of a 1200 pound bull snorting a few inches from her face. I guess she thinks they are all like Belle, our St. Bernard, because she kept sticking her hand out and telling them to "sniff her hand", just like I will do at home to show her that Belle loves her and she shouldn't be afraid of her.

Neely is learning a new blessing at Sunday School. It's to the tune of the nursery rhyme "Brother John". It goes like this:

God, Our Father
God, Our Father
Once Again, Once Again
We Will Ask The Blessing
We Will Ask The Blessing
Amen, Amen

We've gone over it a little with her, and it sounded really cute, but Monday night, while she was in the bathtub, I stepped around the corner to her room to get her pajamas, and I could hear her singing her blessing. It was too cute! Of course, she pronounces her "L" sounds kind of like "W"s, and I'm pretty sure she is saying "Farder" instead of Father, but that just makes it all cuter. The best part of it, though, has to be the end, when she says, "Awamen, Awamen". Yep, leave it to a southerner to add an entire syllable to a word!

January's (Almost) Over!!!

When January 1st rolled around, I knew what I had in store for me. Let me give you a rundown on what I have had going on this month: January 10th - Derek's birthday. January 13th - baby shower brunch and then Neely's birthday party. January 15th - Neely's actual birthday. January 20th - Derek's cousin's wedding. January 21st - my mom's birthday. Not to mention a major busy week at work right around the time of Derek's birthday, so there was no being able to leave early to plan something special for him, even if I had the energy from working my rear off all day. Oh, and Neely has been ill quite a lot this month, so there was 2 seperate doctor's appointments for that, in which I took off from work to take care of her when she was sick (I've taken three days off already! LOL), so my month has been just a little crazy. Even though this month was a test of my emotional and physical well being, I can't help but smile when I think of all of the birthdays I was able to celebrate, as well as the wedding we attended. It was all very lovely, but, I have made up my mind - from now on, I will boycott the entire month of January. :)

The Story of Us

A little backstory on how we came to be Neely's parents: Derek and I met in the fall of 1997 at college, where we were both members of the school's dance team. Even though we spent two hours a day in the same room together, we weren't exactly friends. In fact, we hardly spoke during the entire first semester of our freshman year. Then second semester came, and the dance team took a trip to Disney World. During our trip, Derek and I found ourselves seated next to each other during dinner one night. We started talking, then decided with a few other people to spend the rest of the evening checking out Epcot. A couple flirtatious days later, and we were a couple.

We were married on March 10, 2001, after 3 years and 2 weeks of dating. We had a beautiful wedding, and have been blissfully happy ever since. After almost two years of marriage, we decided we were ready to add to our little family. About four months after that, we found out that we were, in fact, pregnant with our first little miracle. After a heavenly and wonderfully uneventful pregnancy filled with happiness, adorable maternity clothes, and lots and lots of chocolate, Neely Katherine entered the world with a bang. My pregnancy ended on a tad of a scary note. I had come down with pre-eclampsia during the last few weeks of my pregnancy and after a week and half of bedrest, was induced at 37 weeks. During labor, my blood pressure skyrocketed, causing me to have seizures. I was given an emergency C-section and luckily, sweet Neely was never affected by it. I was unconscious for the first 19 hours of her life, but I made it out A-OK too. We had a bit of a long hospital stay, but when we finally came home, life with Neely started, and it has been the sweetest life I could ever ask for.

Welcome to my blog!

This blog was created for me to journalize my day to day activities as Neely's mom. Neely is a very energetic, happy, zany, bright eyed three year old. And she is my best friend. I really want to use this blog as a way to show people that, while my life might be rather ordinary and so like many others, I still like to talk about it, whether or not anyone listens (or reads, lol).

Neely was born on January 15, 2004, after a crazy and scary birth experience, and ever since she has been the light of our lives. We just celebrated her third birthday on the 13th of January, and I still can't believe our baby is growing up so fast. She had a blast, and got some pretty cool gifts. Oh, and today is January 24th, and she is still asking me if it is still her birthday. Here is a picture of her driving her new princess car we got her for her birthday. Along for the ride is her cousin, Emma Kate.