2 years ago...

Two years ago today I was sitting in a hospital room at UNC in Chapel Hill, NC. Jason and I were prepared for the arrival of our baby girl (except for the fact that I had not packed my bag for the hospital!). We were prepared, but only because both of our families had been in NC the weekend before for my baby shower at the church. Jason and Bill put the crib and pack ‘n play together. Julie, Suzanne and my Mom washed all the baby clothes and folded them neatly in the dresser. My Dad painted the dresser we bought for the nursery and also brought up the Hayes family cradle…and I just made sure things were getting done (Ha!)! Little did we know that less than 48 hours after the family left I would go in to labor. I woke up early Tuesday morning in great discomfort =), but didn’t think too much about it since it was still 3 weeks to my due date. I rested at home for a little bit that morning and then for some reason thought it would be a good idea to go to work. After being at work for no more than 30 minutes I had my first contraction. I was about to go on a quick home visit to see one of my families, but was told by a co-worker that I should probably go home (thanks Valerie!). I did go home and called Jason on the way home and told him I thought I was in labor. Some time around 2 (and after being encouraged by both mothers) we went to the hospital. It’s pretty funny to go back and look at the note paper we were writing the contraction times down on. It's hard to believe we stayed at home as long as we did. During all of this my sweet husband packed my bag for me! After spending a few hours in the hospital we were sent home. I was told that I was dehydrated and that after I ate and rested the contractions would stop. Gracie did settle down some before we left the hospital, but apparently she didn’t like that we left because once we got home the contractions started back up again. The midwife that saw me at the hospital gave me a prescription for Ambien and told me to take it and sleep and to come back when the pain was unbearable. NOT A GOOD IDEA!!!! Also, not something a first time mother wants to hear. Unbearable pain...isn't that why they have epidurals? So you don't have to get to the unbearable part??!! For some reason I did take the Ambien, but it came back up fairly quickly…no sleep for me. A couple of hours later we were back at the hospital and they admitted me this time. I think Jason and I were still in denial that Gracie was going to be born. All day we had been telling our families not to come up yet. After a long night, a wonderful epidural, and an unplanned c-section Elizabeth Grace was born at 3:44 am. She weighed 7lbs and 9oz and was 19 ½ in. long. She was the most beautiful baby we had ever seen.

My mom shared a funny memory with me tonight. She told me that she had been at BSF that night and when she got done she got the message saying that I was at the hospital again and this time for good. She said she told my dad that she would slow down as she passed the house and he could jump in! My parent’s drove through the night and got to the hospital that morning. Bill and Suzanne caught the first flight out Wednesday morning and were there before lunch. We were so thankful to have our NC “family” with us that night. Mitch and Betty came and stayed a long time with us at the hospital. RG and Carlita stayed all night and were Gracie’s first visitors. It was so special to have them with us.

The past two years have been wonderful. Gracie is such a blessing and truly a gift from God. We cherish the time we have with her and are thankful that God has given us such a sweet and tender (although sometimes spirited) little girl.

Me and Gracie in the recovery room

Gracie's sweet little praying hands

Our first family picture...well one of the first
Jason and his little girl
Grandmother reading "Guess How Much I Love You" to Gracie

Gracie's first car ride

Gracie on 1/11/07Maybe Gracie will be a little more excited about her birthday this year!!

a little update

Gracie found a new place to discover.This is the sweetest book and Gracie loves reading it.

This is Gracie's favorite song to dance to.

One day I will get around to the "end of year" update...if life would just slow down for a few days. Ha!

A mini update: After I wrote the last post, Jason's Granddad died later that night. Julie, Ryan and Bill all made it to Tuscaloosa to see him before he died. Noah spent the night with us that night. We traveled to Tuscaloosa over the next few days to be with family and for the funeral. In the middle of that we turned in my leased car and bought a mini van (I sure hope Gracie plays soccer one day!). We've been happy with our Honda so far.

We had a good Christmas. It was much better than I had anticipated. I had imagined myself weeping all day long and not able to enjoy anything. It was hard, but our day was filled with wonderful new moments and sweet memories of Dad and Pa-Pa Howell. My sweetest new Christmas memory was Gracie seeing her rocking horse that my dad had bought for her. It still remains to be a favorite and she still ask for "Penny" often. We remind her that Poppa Hayes (Payes is what she calls him) gave it to her and that he loves her. Whenever she sees his picture she calls his name in the sweetest voice. My dad had bought "Penny" for Gracie just before Thanksgiving. He was so excited about it and showed it to me with great enthusiasm on Thanksgiving day.

On Dec. 31 my great Uncle Roy died. He was my dad's uncle. He and his wife, Violet, live in Hoover not far from us. Uncle Roy had a stroke two years ago. They did not expect him to recover as well as he did and count the last two years as a blessing. Uncle Roy and Aunt Violet were and are very special people to my parents. They had always been like another set of parents for them. Uncle Roy was so saddened by my dad's death. He depended a lot on my dad for house projects and they always knew they could call my parents at any time. My parents had gotten in a little routine of taking the newspaper to them after church and visiting with them most Sundays. Today was his funeral.

On January 1 my cousin Christi (Cookie's daughter -for those of you who know my mom's side of the family) gave birth to her first child. His name is Brantley Chase and they are calling him Chase. He weighed 5lbs 8oz. Christi was due mid Jan. so she was about 38 weeks. The doctors did an emergency c-section because Chase's heart rate was so low. When he was born he was not breathing. There was a blood clot in his umbilical cord. He is on a ventilator in the NICU at DCH in Tuscalossa. The doctors have talked about brain damage, mental retardation and a poor quality of life. Please keep Christi, her husband Zach, and baby Chase in your prayers. (I know there are more details, but I do not know them all and do not want to misquote anything, so please forgive the vague details.)

Ok, so that's about all I can write for now...so much for a mini update. Thank you again for all your prayers and support and I just ask that you continue to pray for my family and extended family. Life is and has been tough, but we are resting in our God and know that he is in control. I pray that through it all we continue to glorify Him in all that we do and say.

To end on a light note...Our sweet baby girl will be TWO next Friday! I can't believe how fast the time has gone. She has two new teeth, so we're catching up with the rest of her buddies with 11 now! She is talking so much and putting two and three words together all the time. We still don't understand everything she says, but it is so neat to see her understanding her world better and being able to communicate with us.

Gracie being an elephant

As most of you already know, my dad died on Nov. 26. I want to write a post about my dad, but am still working through it. I have struggled with whether or not to post about anything else before I wrote about my dad, but decided to after a fun evening tonight with Gracie. I still plan to write about my dad, but am not able to yet.

We are so blessed to have Gracie in our lives. Over the past two weeks she has brought so many smiles to our faces. I have struggled with grieving having Gracie in my face, just being a toddler, but I am thankful for those light moments with her. She is such a joy. She is 23 months old today.

On another note...Jason's granddad (Suzanne's dad) is not doing well. He has been at home since late last week (he was at the VA in Tuscaloosa) and Hospice is there. We are not sure he will make it through the night. Julie, Ryan, and Noah are flying in late tonight and will head down to Tuscaloosa. We will go in the morning.

Please keep both families in your prayers. Thank you so much for your prayers over the past two weeks. We have felt them and have been blessed by our friends and family. We have really felt the grace of God during this terrible time.

Sunday after church and nap.

Look at how long her hair is!

Go DUKE!!!

This morning when I walked into Gracie's room to get her out of bed she pointed at my shirt and said "Duke". I grabbed her out of the bed and ran her into our room to show Jason. He was very proud! =) She got very excited too and started clapping and saying "yea!". Jason and Gracie had Daddy/Daughter time earlier this week while I was out and they watched part of the Duke game together. Gracie was so cute repeating Jason as he cheered his team on! That was our big reminder that she's really repeating everything we say! She is so smart (I know every parent says that!) and is talking all the time. She's putting words together a lot. Yesterday we were out walking around with Suzanne and she was holding Gracie and Gracie started wiggling and said "I want walk". Suzanne put her down and she started walking right beside us. She is such a joy right now and we are having a blast with her!

new pics

I took this picture on the way home from Jonathan's 2nd birthday party last night. Gracie was still ready to play! She had a blast playing with Jonathan and Jackson (and Jonathan's new toys...I now have a few new ideas to add to her Christmas list!!).Gracie's hair is growing so fast! I put it in a ponytail after her bath this morning. It slowly fell down as her hair dried, but she loved wearing it back. Isn't her pink jogging suit cute??!!
Gracie was brushing her teeth and dancing with some weird show on tv this morning.

Gracie's own language

This is part of Gracie's own language. She used to make these sounds a lot, but then stopped, but over the past few days she's been making them again. They crack me up! Sorry she's not in part of the video...she's still amazed at digital cameras.

pumpkins and cookies

We carved pumpkins this week and Gracie loved helping Mommy. She kept taking the lid off and walking around with it. Even tonight when they were lit she wanted to take the lid off and look inside. She thought it was pretty neat that we were pulling weird stuff out of the pumpkin.

We were invited to a neighbor's house for dinner tonight. I was told that they didn't ask the new neighbors to bring anything, but I decided to take cookies. I bought cute halloween cookies that are already in shapes (ghost, cats, pumpkins and bones) and there was a lot of extra dough from in between the shapes. I decided to use the extra dough to make a treat for Gracie...and because apparently I have too much time on my hands =) Gracie got to eat the duck and heart after her nap this afternoon and ate the letter "r" tonight instead of candy.

I waited until it was too dark to take pictures of the pumpkins. I have a picture of Gracie and Jason sitting beside the pumpkins, but since I turned my flash off they are hidden in the night =) I think it's fun carving pumpkins...maybe one day Gracie will think it's fun stuff too!

We decided not to take Gracie out tonight after we got home from dinner. We thought it might be a little funny and obvious who the candy was for having two parents to walk around with a 21 month old who can't even say "trick-or-treat". She doesn't seem to understand or care at this point and we were ready to come in anyway. She just knows it's fun to put on her costume. Gracie had fun playing at the neighbor's house and even jumped on a big kid trampoline for a few minutes (I heard she had a tight grip on Jason's finger, who was standing right beside her but on the ground, the whole time she jumped). There were tons of Indians, two Spider Men and a Princess...and a Pink Poodle of course. We didn't get any pictures of Gracie tonight, but I think over the weekend we got plenty! Once we got home a few trick-or-treaters came by. Gracie got scared by a big kid and wouldn't stop crying. I think maybe that's when she got a cookie =) She stayed up until around 8:30 tonight and was so pooped. Hopefully the time change this weekend won't be too bad on any of us!

Sunday afternoon pics

Gracie is such a champ going up and down her slide by herself. She gets very proud when she gets to the top and sits for a few seconds before she slides down. She is totally obsessed with her lawn mower this week. This was Sunday after her nap and she walked around the yard for a long time just pushing the mower...it's out of bubbles, but she still enjoys it. She even pushed it later that afternoon when she had on the poodle costume!
She's just so cute! Gracie put her costume on when Bill and Suzanne were over Sunday afternoon. Bill didn't get to go to the Fall Festival, so Gracie turned into a poodle again to show off for Grandaddy. She had a blast and loved having it on.
Gracie loves her pumpkins and now wants them by the slide every time we go out.

Fall Festival

Gracie practicing being a poodle!Cinderella and "Fi Fi" on the carousel.

What a fun night we had! I'm glad Gracie gets to wear this costume again on Wednesday, because I didn't do a very good job getting a picture of her by herself. She had a blast playing with Claire Ellen and riding the carousel with her. Gracie walked around with us for a while and then she spent some time with Gran while mommy and daddy worked at the Titanic Slide (which by the way was the biggest inflatable thing there!!). I wish I had a picture, but I didn’t get one. Jason sat at the top and directed the kids down either side of the sinking ship. I stood at the bottom and told the kids when they could start the long, steep, dark climb up to the top. I think Jason got a little bored at the top, but we were glad to volunteer for a bit. Gracie enjoyed the blue grass music that was outside. She would start dancing every time she heard the band start up. Gracie ate lots of popcorn and cotton candy (she crashed once we finally got home and hopefully she’ll sleep in in the morning).

Noah's visit

The Bratcher's were in Birmingham a few weeks ago and we all had a great visit. I've posted a slide show with pictures of Noah and Gracie from the weekend. We went to the pumpkin patch with them, but Gracie was tired and hungry, so she didn't get any good pics (well, funny ones, but nothing I would print =)). We said we would go back with Gracie, but time has flown by once again and I'm not sure we'll make it back out there. Tonight is the Fall Festival at Dawson and Gracie is going as a pink poodle (thank you Old Navy for last minute sales) and I'm sure we'll get some great pictures there. If she's up for it after her nap we might have a little photo shoot on the front porch with our two pumpkins. So, check back later in the weekend for new pics. Back to Noah's visit...Gracie did well with Noah overall, but she had her moments of "this kid is staying? and now he's playing with all of MY toys!". She has settled down with the word "mine" and I'm thankful for that. Gracie did a lot of petting Noah's head, hugging him, sticking his pacifier in his mouth, and even trying to feed him goldfish! I can't wait to see these two at Christmas!



In other news...Jason has made the switch over to ERA Oxford and we're really excited about the new opportunities that will bring for him. Jason and his parents are working on their first "flip" and that is going well. If anyone wants to buy an updated, cute house in Homewood let us know =)

Gracie days

Gracie loves coloring these days! Big Thanks to Publix for coloring books and crayons when we go shopping. We've let out the hem from last year's dress and are sending it to Grandmother's to get a new hem, but Gracie just can't wait! She tries on the dress at least once a day and this morning it was with a pair of my shoes (and her pj's)!!

This is a cute video of Gracie from yesterday. She had just finished having a fit and composed herself nicely, but she didn't seem to want to talk...I finally got a couple of words out of her. Her vocabulary is really growing and it amazes me! Now, if we can just get that thing out of her mouth!

ROLL TIDE!!!!

Gracie loves wearing Mommy's shoes! She's very talented walking in them as well.
This was at the end of Gracie's play date today. Most of the kids had gone home already, but we were still chatting with John Michael and Claire Ellen.
We LOVE this weather! She loves being a big girl and pushing her bike around!

fall shoes

Gracie got two new pair of Fall shoes yesterday (Thanks Gran and Grandaddy!) and was eager to try them on today. Gracie is sporting a very cute dress that Leslie Ellis made her earlier this year. We went to the Hoover library with some friends (Melissa, Allie and Kyle Sanderson) this morning for story time and then to the mall for lunch and a carousel ride. Gracie and Allie had a great time together. They even held hands for a bit while walking through the mall.

more new pics

Gran teaching Gracie how to ride a bike (Gran's bike). They had a blast!
Gracie just being cute!
Gracie and Grandaddy. Bill is doing much better and has even gone back to work a little. Gracie loves sitting with Bill in the chair. Continue to pray for Bill as he recovers. He's doing physical therapy now, but is still not able to put weight on his right leg.
Gracie's favorite meal is breakfast by far. She loves eating mini pancakes (anywhere from 9-13 of them!!) and likes to finish off the meal with yogurt or fruit. She's getting so good at eating with her fork and spoon. She would rather feed herself than us feed her. It takes a little longer that way, but I'm glad she's learning (and it's easier to eat with her if I don't have to spoon feed her everything).

We had another accident in the family this week. My mom was in a car accident on Tuesday morning. She was taken to the ER, but is ok. She has some bruising and soreness in her chest and right arm, but all the x-rays came back fine. She has an appointment this afternoon for a check up to make sure everything is still ok and hopefully she'll be back to herself and able to go to work on Monday. She said that if she compares this wreck to the wreck she was in with us in NC, this one wasn't too bad =) Please pray for healing for her body.

Last update: check out www.thebratcherbunch.blogspot.com. Julie posted new pictures of Noah and he is getting so big and is adorable! They will be in town next weekend and I can't wait to see Gracie and Noah together!!

new pics

Mommy, Gracie and Big Al
This picture and the first 2 were taken at my cousin's house in Aliceville. We went for her daughter's first birthday party. Not only did she have pony rides, but she also got a pony for her birthday present! Gracie loved the ponies!! My mom's younger sister Rhonda is sitting in the front with the owner of the ponies. Gracie sporting her new shoes that we got at the beach. I think this picture looks like what her "first day of school" picture will look like (kind of sad!!).