A week and a half to go

In a week and a half we will be saying goodbye to Karissa as she heads out for Jamaica. She is excited and I'm nervous! She will be there for 2 weeks without us and then we will go for a 2 week vacation so in total she will be there a month. She is going on a mission trip with the middle school group from Southland and then the group will leave after a week and she will stay and get alot of one on one time with Mamaw and Papaw.
I choke up from time to time just thinking about it.

Kendall turns 1

You know when it's your third child and you've had about all the birthdays you can handle. All 3 of my girls are 2 weeks apart which means we are celebrating someones birth every 2 weeks. We kept Kendall's low key, just us and Jason's parents. I went back and forth on whether or not to have a big party but she was fine with this and she got some cool toys!

She is now standing by herself and just crusing around. I'm praying that she walks before we leave for Jamaica!! I'm trying hard to get her to love her sippy cup because I'm done with bottles! She loves to throw her arms up in the air and have you scream YAY! She is a busy little lady. She loves her sisters and Karissa and her have a special bond which I love. She gets upset when you take her away from her. Katie still acts like she is a doll baby and can make her laugh with all of her goofy faces. She is daddy's girl and gets upset if I take her away from him. Her little face lights up when she sees him!

We love you Kendall

Mulitcultural night

Katie's ballet recital

Katie is 6

Katie had her birthday party today after school. We had pizza and cupcakes and then they wanted to dress up. Mary and I then took them to get their toes and fingers painted. They had a blast

Karissa turns 12

It's hard to believe that 12 years ago today Karissa came into this world 5 weeks premature. She weighed 5 lbs 3 oz and was 17 inches long. She had a head full of dark hair and the nurses were arguing on what color it was!

That day started out with me just thinking I was going to just check my blood pressure and go home but it proved not to be so. Dr. Wheeler was very concerned and told us to go directly to the hospital, not to go and get my suitcase, I remember thinking I feel fine and I'm not even packed-we still have 5 weeks left to get the baby's room ready and to pack. I called my mom and Jason's mom crying-I was 23 years old and scared. Jason's mom packed for me and got the car seat out of the box for us!

Jason's parents sat at the hospital with us that day and the next! Jason never left my side which I was very grateful for because I had never been in a hospital and I don't particularly like Dr's or pain for that matter. My parents and sister drove up on May 7th and got here just in time to say hello to me. Karissa was born at 10:30 p.m. on May 7th.

I remember Chanda and Jason shopping for clothes for her because everything we had were too big. They only could find 3 outfits in a preemie size now I can walk into any store and see preemie clothes everywhere!

Happy 12th Birthday Karissa Lacey. We love you and are so proud of the young lady you are becoming. I know I will have a hard time letting you go when you go to Jamaica for 2 weeks but I'm very proud that you want to go on a mission trip and I know you will have a great time helping the people there.

Tea Luncheon for Tara and John's little girl

Adoption has a very special place in my heart. I would love to adopt but since it's not possible I LOVE to help others. My friends, Carrie, Brooke, Jen (who couldn't be there) and I hosted a Mother/Daughter tea and we contributed $25.00 each for the cost of food for the tea party. We had 2 showings starting at 11-1 and then another at 2-4. We served 36 lovely ladies at the 1st and 27 at the 2nd. We charged $10.00 for the Ma'ams and 5.00 for the Misses and the total profit would go to Tara and John to help them bring Kami home from Ethiopia. We guessed by the amount of people that were coming she would make 500.00 and imagine our surprise when it was all said and done- we raised over $1300.00-Praise God!!!

We were asked by several people if they can hire us out and now it's a small dream to open up our own Tea shop in Nicholasville and Brooke came up with the name-4 friends 4 Tea. Carrie is the brains behind all of this and she is amazing. We all had a great time helping with it.