When Crap Happens.

Well crap. Bad news ahead.

My hubby got hurt yesterday - we spent last night in the ER as he can't walk or even stand up right now. After dozens of x'rays they found that he strained/sprained his back and has 2 slipped disks that he will most likely have to have surgery on. He's on a ton of pain meds and will be out of work for at least a week. (not good as we're self employed... no work - no pay for us) so just keep us in your thoughts and prayers please - if he ends up needing surgery soon I may end up getting a job - and at nearly 8 months preggo we all know how hard that will be.

I'm so overwhelmed right now, just trying to take it one day at a time. We won't know much more until Wednesday as to the surgery and if it'll be right away or in a few months/year or so. I'm scared for him, he's such a "mans man" Mr. I can do it myself... it's hard seeing him struggle through this. They discharged him from the hospital with orders to not get off the sofa or do anything to strain himself whatsoever in the next 48 hours. He can crawl and walk hunched over - but he can't stand up or walk normally. Poor guy is really struggling with this.

Lizzy doesn't understand why daddy can't play and rough house with her, so I've had to keep her away from him a good bit - which is all the worse for him. He hates not being with us... MIL watched Liz for us for awhile and I just spent time talking and sitting with him today. *sigh* He's staying at my MIL's right now in case something spasms again and he has to go back to the ER - that way his brothers can help load him up into a car and get him there... as there's just no way I could help get a 200+lb man into a car right now. That part stinks too - I'm not with him or able to take care of him as much as I want...

To top it all off, I rolled down the windows in my car yesterday and the back window got stuck... in the rain - so fun. *rollseyes* It just couldn't have gotten stuck any other freakin day when Jay would be able to fix it... so I had to use an umbrella last night sticking out of the window to keep water off the back seats - then today when I was taking Liz home to nap... there was a yellow jacket in the car. Fun fun times. (I'm terrified of bees)

AHHHHHHHHHH *&$*#!#$!@*&^!*&@^!!!!!!!!

Okay, I feel better. lol Jay thinks this is Gods way of telling him to slow down... he said he knew he shouldn't have been working so hard - pulling 50+ hour weeks in the tree business and then going straight over to the new house every night until 11 or later was taking its toll - but he just kept on pushing himself.... and now we have about 4 or 5 big projects left to do before we could move in... and we're at a standstill.

Anyway... sorry - just needed to vent and get that all off my chest. We'll figure it out, I know God will provide for us, he always has before... it's just tough when we're in the middle of the crappy times.

But a friend once told me the only way to get to the otherside of a crappy situation is to keep walking forward and not stop.

I'm hoping and praying that Madeline stays put until her due date - I was hoping she'd get here early but now I realize, life is much simpler while pregnant with a toddler than with a newborn and a toddler and a hubby who's injured. I'll definately take the aches and pains and have her stay put awhile longer...

I'll update more as the doctors give us info... for now, I'm tired. Jay's hurting. Lizzy's napping and Maddy's doing loop de loops. Prayers needed.

Christmas Update:

Well goodness, Christmas is long gone but we all had a wonderful time and ate way too much. LOL Christmas Eve service was wonderful, our worship team was just fantastic. They really made it an evening to remember... after church we went to Linda's (MIL's) for Christmas Eve Dinner of pot roast with all kinds of goodies on the side. After that we went home and I passed out early leaving Jay to ready the tree for the morning since I was sooooo exhausted. As of Christmas Eve my cold had moved onto a nasty sinus infection - fun fun times... so I slept little that night and was wide awake by 6 am... however my husband and daughter slept until 8:30 - well... actually i woke both of them up at 8:30 because I was bored and wanted to get on with our day. LOL My sleepy kiddo would have gladly slept another hour...

Morning Liz! :D (I'm so rotten!) Anyway, once awake she was thrilled to dig into the big pile of presents, she just *had* to be the one to hand them all out, we got a good kick out of this... "Who dis one for mommy?" LOL And she got stuck on every single present for a LONG time. It was hilarious... the smallest of books would have to be gone through before she could move on to another present, every toy had to be taken out of the box and played with before another gift could be opened... it had us in stitches and also made Christmas last for quite awhile.

Jay and I got each other some much needed clothes (thank goodness Motherhood was running a few sales before christmas!) along with a few "fun" things, and we all enjoyed our overstuffed stockings as well. This is her "Cheese" face... Anyway, fast forward a bit... while we were opening presents, my Cream Cheese Breakfast Casserole was in the oven and making the house smell heavenly. We hauled our breakfast over to my MIL's house where between 5 adults we polished off a 9x13 pan of the casserole in no time, before digging into our second Christmas of the morning. Lizzy was spoiled rotten by her grammy this year, receiving some VERY cute clothes from the Carters store, as well as a Leap Frog learning pad with a few books, a 9 foot tunnel to play outside with daddy, lots of games and books and smaller toys too, AND a Disney Princess Trunk of dress up clothes... good gracious! Jay and I got more clothes and a wonderful gift card to Target with the instructions to go purchase the girls new bathroom accessories. (SO FUN! I had a blast picking it all out last night... ) Anyway, Christmas at Linda's was great fun, Ashley and Emery came over to have lunch with us since Seth had to work all day.... poor guy. We had a huge ham with all the fixins ;) and lots of fun. After lunch we went home and napped and then woke up and went over to my mama's house. Mom and Daddy spoiled Lizzy rotten as well, Liz got a new Baby Alive doll that coo's, cries, eats, pees, poo's, giggles, sucks a bottle, etc. She's really cute. They got her a stroller, some diapers, clothes, etc to go with the new baby...

Lizzy has had SO much fun the last few days walking "baby Abby" (that's what Liz named her) around the house in her stroller, changing her diaper - every 5 seconds, and feeding her a bottle whenever she cries. It's super cute and she's learning how to hold the baby gently, burp the baby after she drinks, etc. I'm hoping this will all help gear her up for Madeline's arrival. Mama got Lizzy a ton of clothes, leap frog toys, art things etc, and got me yet MORE maternity clothes (I'm set now with lots of winter clothes!) as well as a ton of things for Madeline. Mom made Beth and I baby boxes full of diapers, wipes, paci's, bottles, toys, clothes, socks, lotions, bottle cleaners etc etc... it was SO much fun going through all the fun new baby things - and I just had to open the newborn diapers up - and ooooooh how I'd forgotten how tiny they are! It put tears in my eyes seeing those tiny little things and knowing those first few days, those diapers are actually BIG on the baby! Mom also got me the crib blanket to match Madeline's nursery. SO cute. And a fun splurge - I was planning on buying that really soon as it's quite adorable, but now I have my blanket. AND she got me the matching diaper bag!!! Brown and Pink polka dots with pink and brown toile as well. Soooo adorable!
So it was a wonderful Christmas... we all enjoyed our day and everyone was blessed with TONS of new things. More importantly though... it was really special being pregnant over Christmas Day... it was a great reminder of what a special gift I have inside of me, and how amazing Mary of so long ago was to give birth in a stable to Jesus... I can't image the thoughts and feelings of travleling on a donkey in my 9th month of pregnancy... I can't help but wonder what was going through her mind when everyone turned them away with no room in the inn's... and yet she gave birth to Jesus - right there in the middle of a barn... no bed... no drugs... no mom around to help, just her and her unexperienced husband. So scary, and yet so amazing. The birth of Christ really came to life for me this year... which gave the holidays true meaning and made it quite special to be pregnant over such an important day.

Anyways, since Christmas Day, I've exchanged a few things that didn't fit Jay or I, picked up my new bathroom set for the girls room. Here's a picture of the line we went with (from Target's website) we added lavender towels and a huge lavender bath rug for the floor:

All in all, our goal is to try to move in on Monday and Tuesday - hopefully completing the rest of the house rennovations by Sunday night... I went over today and hung 3 blinds. Not a huge deal I know, but anything I can do to help makes me feel like I'm pitching in. (And hanging blinds is TOUGH!) LOL Easy enough for Jay but it took me awhile to get used to the drill, not to mention Lizzy was busy holding on to my legs and begging me to pick her up the whole time - so on the whole, I think 3 blinds was actually quite good. hahaha. Lots of little projects left to do, and still a couple big ones... (beadboard both bathrooms, install new sinks and countertops, finish the pine floors in both baths, and finish "refinishing" the kitchen cabinets... aka... sand, paint, sand paint and paint some more until they look new again.) Not so huge that we can't do it, but it'll definately take awhile considering Jay's got work booked up through Saturday during the day - so it means lots of long nights while we finish all this up. But we're getting there... and by next week this time hopefully I'll be updating from our new house. :) That's all for now!

Christmas Eve!

So, it's 2:30 and we've already had a fun filled day! We woke up this morning and all cuddled together on the couch (it was in the 40's outside! And not much warmer inside! LOL) So we huddled under a blanket and all watched Evan Almighty together. Cute movie, and Liz loved the animals. Then we went over to mama's house for our Christmas Eve party. Mom had a chocolate fondue fountain - YUMMO - and cheese fondue along with tons of little appetizers. Wow that was good... then daddy read Luke 2:1-20 - our Christmas Eve tradition and then we opened all the kids gifts to each other. It was a great time. Everyone bought Madeline presents this year - that was super special. She got baby toys, some receiving blankets to match her new room, and an adorable hat to wear home from the hospital! Lizzy got an Aquadoodle for the bathtub, 2 My Little Ponies, a Little People Opposites book, and Christmas PJ's from Nanie. (Tomorrow we'll open all of Nanies gifts to the girls, but for today it was just sibling gifts.) I got a new maternity shirt, a gift card to O'Charlie's for dinner, a wallet and some new Christmas PJ's. LOL Love that Christmas Eve tradition!

Now we're home so Liz can nap - our Christmas Eve service is tonight at 5 and then we're having dinner at Linda's afterwards. Then tomorrow's the big day! :) I'm *finally* getting into the Christmas mood! Took me long enough!

I've got a head cold that's driving me nuts, and the moved Suedophed to the class C list so it's not really safe to take anymore - so I'm pushing through with as little meds as possible... I hope this clears up soon, I hate feeling yucky during all the festivities. Anyway, I'm off to nap - I did get Jay to take a pic of my belly this morning - so here's my 30 weeks shot: (not sure why it's so grainy though)

Anyway, that's all for now... Merry Christmas Eve everyone!

Almost Christmas!

So amidst all the craziness of this house... there's also a very special holiday approaching that I'm *finally* finished shopping for! LOL I did more than I said I would... I always do that... I'd been collecting things for Lizzy's stocking for quite awhile now - and when I finally sat down to see if I needed anything else to top it off, I realized - I could have filled up 3 stockings for her. LOL I have a huge bag of stocking stuffers left over. Since we're refinishing her new desk, I bought her lots of art things - crayons, washable markers, chalk, colored pencils, construction paper, coloring books, washable paints, etc. And a couple organizers to keep it all neat in her desk! I'm so excited to see her sitting there making art. LOL So cute! Aside from that I filled Jay and Lizzy's stockings to the top - with no room left for so much as a candy cane. I just love stockings! :D My favorite part of the gift giving process... fun to shop for, fun to stuff, and fun to open! LOL

On top of all that, I picked up the last of my holiday baking/cooking things this morning. I'm making a cream cheese breakfast casserole on Christmas Eve so all I have to do is pop it in the oven on Christmas morning... suuuuper yummy! And then, since we're having dinner at my MIL's on Christmas day instead of my mama's... I figured I'd bring a few of my favorite Christmas Dinner dishes along so it still felt like home for me too. So I'm making a sweet creamed corn casserole and Waldorf Salad. *lickin my lips already* Yay! I do need to go pick up some seedless red grapes from Publix - they were all out at Walmart this morning. And boy was that place crazy - stupid me for waiting until the Saturday before Christmas to finish up my shoppng - but oh well... they had tons of people stocking shelves, and 3x's that many people loading up their carts just as fast - there were several things I got nearly the last item of, off the shelf. It was just nuts! The line wasn't too long - fortunately they had almost every aisle open instead of their usual 3. So I was only 2 back and made it through the line in under 20 minutes.

Last night was our annual Oyster Roast. It was super fun. Grandma and Grandaddy Clemmons got Liz, Jay and I EACH a $25 gift card to Walmart... so my $100 shopping list this morning only cost me $25. :D Gotta love that! I stocked up on milk and OJ too so we won't have to go back until after Christmas. Now we can focus more on getting the bathrooms and kitchen finished so we can move in next weekend! I can't even begin to believe we're moving already... I've yet to pack almost anything. I guess it'll be one car/truck load after another until the house is empty.

Anyway, back to the Oyster Roast - G&G Clemmons celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary, so we all sang to them and smiled as Grandaddy showed an uncommon kindess to grandma all night. (Usually he's an old codger to his saintly wife.) But last night was a special treat for all of us. Aunt Marianne made it a Hawaiian Christmas (having just got back from Hawaii) so we played a big gift exchange game where everyone went home with something from Hawaii - Lizzy ended up with a Hula Rag doll, I ended up with a Hawaiian calander and a set of oven mits, dish towels etc with sea turtles on them, and Jay found himself with two necklaces - one of a turtle and the other a fish hook made from the bone of some exotic animal whose name escapes me at the moment. All in all it was good fun for everyone. We all came home stuffed to the brim (though I didn't have a single oyster *sad*) I managed to fill up on grapes, veggies, summer sausage, and punch. LOL Jay's dad was a weirdo last night... telling me how "beautiful you are when you're pregnant." *shivers* He creeps me out. Bryan seemed to be doing alright considering Ashley's out of the picture now. He has his bad days but seems to be managing - that stupid girl keeps screwing with the family which is really starting to tick me off - but I'm trying to stay out of it all as much as I can. We spent way too much on Bryan this year - but I figure since he just came out of a breakup, we'll help make up for what he'll be missing on Christmas morning. :)

All in all I found some huge deals this week... I got my whole family shopped for and finished up and managed to stay under budget! So fun! I'll post the list just so I have this to look back on - for those who read my blogs - skip ahead as this will be boring. LOL

Daddy~ Lizzy picked out some tools from Lowes... actually, she grabbed this big gift set right off the shelf and said "Pawpaw!!!!" very loudly. LOL I took that as a sign, they were in our budget and it's a nice set so that's what we got pawpaw.
Mama~ I found a really pretty sweater the day after Thanksgiving for her, then topped it off with some bath salts and lip balm.
Beth~ Super cute maternity shirt, bath salts and lip balm (different scent from mama's.)
Jamie~ Hess gas card. He's in college.... mom said he could really use it. LOL
Caleb~ Black and Grey striped thermal knit shirt with a white belt with big X's on it. Hard to explain but it looked like him.
Linda~ A Tempurpedic pillow (she asked for this) and a Tupperware Pot that you use in the mircrowave to make cakes or just store things in... I went to a tupperware party and got one for myself and one for her. LOL She's like me, I know she'll get a kick out of making a cake in the microwave in 8 minutes. LOL
Bryan~ A cologne gift set. (The boys love their cologne) A Button up Shirt and a Pullover to match it.
Chris~ A cologne gift set. (Different set than Bryan) A book on Architecture and a book on Wood Working. (His career, and his hobby)
Grandma and Grandaddy C~ Dinner at their Cary Hilliards (their favorite restaurant)

And then everything else for my family we've already given out at previous parties...

Jay and Lizzy are going to have great Christmas's this year. There's lots of great things under the tree for both of them and I have a feeling my hubby will spoil me as well... he always does - even though we said to take it easy on Christmas... I know him well. LOL

Lizzy's stocking included: bubble bath, bath markers, a princess mirror and chapstick set, new sippy cups, toothbrush, toothpaste, flash cards (for colors and numbers) crayons, markers, chalk, candy necklace, candycane filled with smarties (her favorite) and I can't remember what else - but there's more stuffed in there. LOL

Jay's stocking includes: 3 pairs of socks for his birk slides, some boxers, a new razor, candy, 3 kinds of cologne, toothbrush, and I can't remember what else in his either. LOL

Anywho this is mostly it... It's been fun shopping for people I love. And I since I managed to get so many amazing deals on things, we still have enough left to work on the house this weekend. I'm headed to Lowes in a few minutes to pick up some high gloss white paint to finish painting Lizzy's new desk, and also the kitchen cabinets need a fresh coat. Jay's going to try to get all the sub floors laid in the bathrooms today. We found a KILLER deal on Craigslist for flooring - a lady in downtown charleston had just refinished her dining room with wide plank natural pine flooring and had 100 sq. feet left over... she was selling all 100 sq. feet for $25. Yep - it's $7 a square foot at Lowes. So this was a HUGE Deal. Granted now we have to do more work than just laying a new floor, as they have to be sanded and stained and then sealed since it's in bathrooms - but they'll be gorgeous when they're finished. And Jay was thrilled to get them - so that's what we'll be working on tomorrow hopefully, getting them laid and sanded and maybe the first coat of stain. We'll see. Jay woke up with a sinus cold this morning... poor guy feels miserable, but he took some cold meds and wants to go work on the house rather than lay around all day... so we may not get a lot done since he's kinda out of it - but that's okay... we've been working our tails off, we'll just do the best we can and move in whenever it all get's finished. :) No worries.

I can't believe Christmas is almost here! OH OH OH!!! AND We got our new insurance which covers EVERYTHING. So Madeline is officially 100% covered for all the hospital bills... which means we can go to MUSC after all! I really wanted too, but it's more expensive than other hospitals in the area so unless the insurance came through we weren't going to go that route... so that's very exciting. I can't wait to take the "tour" sometime after the new year. It'll be really neat getting to deliver in this amazing hospital!

So if anyone other than myself managed to read through this whole thing, Thanks! and Merry Christmas to you!

Flooring.

Well, we finally finished the floors! The carpet is in, and it is GORGEOUS!!!! And the hardwood is done... it almost put tears in my eyes - (stupid, I know) but it just made me SO excited! We've always had laminate - or in this current house refinished hardwood but it was never very pretty, this was rustic... however our new floors are nothing short of beautiful. I'm in love! LOL I spent the evening sitting in each room imagining how I'm going to arrange all the furniture. I decided to switch Maddy's and Lizzy's rooms for now. I was going to give Liz the bigger room - but since we're using part of the nursery as a play room for the next long while, I realized that's silly as all Lizzy will have in her room is a bed, dresser and desk. All of that will easily fit in the smaller of the two rooms - with room to spare... while the nursery/play room will house a crib, glider, dresser, toy chest, kitchen, bookshelf, etc. Definately needs to be the bigger room.

Anyway, I worked out how I want my living room - and we're getting very close to the final run to Lowes for one last major load and then we'll have everything we need to move in!!!!

So anyway, the carpet people did an amazing job - they stayed all day and did it perfectly. I can't wait to take my vacuum and mop over tomorrow afternoon and make those floors sparkle! Right now the carpet has lots of fuzzy stuff and the wood floors look great, but have glue bits and dust on them from all the cutting and such. Just wanted to update - the new flooring has made this house look brand new. SO FUN!

Little Update!

Well after much looking, bargaining, looking some more, pricing everything under the sun, calling contractors and basically spending way too much time on it... the French Doors have FINALLY been ordered! :D Today is the 18th - they said they average 18 days to come in - putting us well past the new year before installation - but there's a very very *slim* chance that the doors may come in before the warehouse closes for Christmas week... if that's the case, we'll have them before New Years! *Crossing my fingers and praying hard* I hope they come in soon - I'd hate to be living in the house with the back door as it is as there's a broken panel in it so it's super drafty, and just plain ugly. LOL

The reason we did so much leg work on this is because those doors are EXPENSIVE. I was bound and determined to get a better deal than anyone was offering us, and in the end, I did. From Lowes none the less! It's still way more than Jay or I would have ever paid - but since the previous owners agreed to pay for a new door, I wanted to find them the best price. And now I'm confidant that I have - and the doors are paid for, ordered and should be shipped soon! I can't *wait* to see them! :D

Here's a pic of the one's we ordered...

Getting There!

Okay, I know these updates are getting old - but I like to be able to look back and see how far we've come over the last week, and this helps me keep my sanity about the whole thing. LOL

Yesterday was a loooooong day - for the guys anyways... it was hardwood floor day and they started at 3 in the afternoon and didn't get home until 1 in the morning!!! AND it's not done yet... SHEESH. It's almost done though - they ran out of glue so they had to stop or they would have stayed all night! CRAZY BOYS. Anyways, what the do have done looks amazing - it's really really beautiful, I can't wait to see it all cleaned up!

As for today... the carpet guys showed up bright and early so they're hard at work right now putting in our carpet. Super thrilled about that! This means that from now on I don't have to drop Lizzy off at anyone's house! :D lol It's now safe for her to come inside while we work and play with her toys/books/etc. again! Yay!

So we decided not to get the table and chairs for her for Christmas after all... because... the people who previously owned the house left this really beautiful desk that will be perfect for Liz... I'm going to repaint it and put on some cute knobs and we'll get her a cute chair to match - it'll be perfect for her room. We're going to take the legs off of it so that it sets about 7 inches lower, which will be the perfect height for a toddler to sit and color or whatever she wants to do - which also gives me more stocking ideas, I'm going to add in lots of artsy stuff so we can fill her desk with fun things for her to play with! SOOO exciting!

AND I found the chandelier that I want for the dining room - at Lowes today! LOL Weird place to find a chandelier I know, but it's wrought iron and very elegant, but not overly huge - and it's on sale. Gotta love that. :D Now that the carpet is in the house we can get to work on the bathrooms and kitchen this week and weekend and then we'll be ready to move in! I cannot believe how fast this all went... or how hard we've been working! LOL But it's finally all coming together. We're hoping to have a New Years party at our new house if we can get all moved in and the boxes all put up in time. :) We shall see... I'm not pushing it.

The backdoor won't be installed until probably after the first of the year as it's a custom order so they said it'd be a couple more weeks. Bummer on that as the current back door is drafty and ugly - but I can always hang curtains in front of it until we get the new one so it doesn't uglify our house. LOL

OOOOOOH and today was Lizzy's Christmas Pagent. Crack. Me. Up. They dressed the kids up in heather brown sweats with reindeer antlers and a fuzzy cotten tail - then they sang 3 songs up on stage - (well the other kids did... Lizzy preffered to dance with the banister leading up the steps to the stage - she seriously just goofed off the whole time, but then again - none of the 2 year olds sang. LOL They mixed them with the 3's and a couple of the 3's sang but for the most part all the kids just stood there with blank expressions on their faces.) SO Cute. None of my pictures turned out great because the church had bad lighting - but I got a few moments on video - not that it's interesting at all, unless you count seeing my kids backside a good video. haha

The baskets I made for the teachers came out beautiful. I wish I'd have gotten a picture of them... all the parents chipped in $10 (8 kids) so we were able to get both the teacher and the assistant a $40 gift card to California Dreaming (a great restaurant on the water in Charleston) and then one of the other mom's and I bought and filled up baskets for the teachers. We put in Christmasy dish towels, a jar candle, christmas ornaments, some soaps, a mug, some hot chocolate along with the gift cards and then placed it all in pretty baskets. It really turned out pretty... the teachers were floored and I was pleased that we were able to do a "big" gift instead of all of us doing our own little things... they ended up with something really nice. So that was fun. Liz is officially on Christmas break! She wore her Christmas dress to school today - along with all the other little girls... they all looked so pretty and festive! One of the little boys (Cole) had on a reindeer sweater - TOOO Cute! All in all It's barely 1 pm and I'm already pooped. LOL It's been a busy couple of days - but we've gotten a lot done and it feels good.

Tomorrow I'm going to attack the rest of my Christmas shopping - I cannot believe it's less than a week away and I have practically NOBODY finished! Seriously. It's sort of sad actually. lol But I'm hoping to knock out a big portion of it tomorrow. :)

So that's it for now, i think I'll try to catch a nap before Liz wakes up and we head over to see the new carpet! :D