Four Christmases

Christmas this year was busier than ever! Since Gabe and I both come from divorced families we were able to celebrate this magical time of year four times! It would have been 5, but we were not able to travel to Boerne for Christmas with my grandma, uncle, and cousins. I will give a brief blurb about each one below so be prepared for another long post.

Christmas Eve (morning) - Christmas #1:

My father in law, Harvey, who lives in L.A. was offered an opportunity to produce a few 15 second commercials for Joe's Crab Shack (airing now). With this opportunity, he was able to do majority of the work in Los Angeles, a little bit in NYC, and then about 10 days in Dallas (which happened to end the day before Christmas Eve). Gabe and I hosted Christmas Eve morning with a Mexican lunch in order to switch it up from the traditional ham or turkey. Luckily, I have a wonderful hubby who wanted to take care of all the food from getting the tamales, cooking tortilla soup, making cornbread, Spanish rice and black beans. It turned out great and was a nice change.

We were spoiled with tons of lovely gifts, and enjoyed the great company. It was so nice to be able to spend this special time of year with my father in law and his girlfriend, Rochelle, since we usually don't get to.

Christmas Eve (mid-day):

One of my cousins from Scottsdale, Melanie, was in town spending Christmas with her husband's family, in Allen, so we HAD to get together for a brief visit. We met her and her baseball player husband at the Galleria. We took Brody to the kid zone so he could be entertained and we could chat, while baby Cash slept in the stroller. She was sweet enough to bring a few gifts and it was HER birthday.

I know that isn't one of the four Christmases, but I wanted this note for our memory.

Christmas Eve (evening) - Christmas #2:

After leaving the Galleria, we headed home to get ready for Christmas with my sister, dad, and step mom, Pat. My dad and Pat were gracious enough to bring the ham and potatoes and dessert over so I just had to add the green bean casserole. It is becoming a tradition to spend Christmas Eve with my dad. It just works, and why fix something that isn't broken, right?

Once again, we were all spoiled with wonderful things, which we all appreciate. Thanks for bringing the yummy food, dad!

Christmas Morning - A Mini Christmas

Santa came! Both boys got one Santa gift. Cash is just loving his Santa gift, and Brody's Santa gift was a little bit overwhelming and not sure if we will keep it. It just wasn't what we were expecting! (bad mom alert- I procrastinated on getting Christmas PJ's for the boys, but I did have Christmas outfits for the day.)

Christmas Morning (mid-morning) - Christmas #3:

My brother in law was gracious enough to host this Christmas at his new house. We had a fantastic meal and visit, just wish we could have stayed longer. Brody and Bella always have a great time together.

Cash loving on Nana

Brody and Bella watching Christmas Vacation

Brody watching Bella drink his juice

Bella's Santa present, a puppy

Unsolicited assistance from Bella :)

Brody loving on Nana

Brody's loving it, Cash not so much...

Christmas Afternoon - Christmas #4:

Since we were already out on the road, we decided it would be best to stop at my mom and Ron's, instead of having them come to us. We snacked over there since we had just eaten a huge meal. It was nice getting to see their new outdoor patio they had built. Can't wait to enjoy it when the weather gets a little nicer. We were definitely spoiled, but Brody was spoiled rotten!

We must have been good this year....

Baby Cash playing

Mr. Brody

A pro at opening presents by this time!

Trying out the new scooter

Grandma and Baby Cash

Sweet sweet Baby Cash

Brothers

Devon

Mommy and Peanut

Musical Reindeer Feet

TRUCK!!

Santa Picture 2010

This did not go as well as last year. Gabe saw the Santa at Northpark Mall as a child, so we thought it would be special for our children to see the same Santa as long as he is still there.

Brody blessed us with an awesome 1st Santa picture last year (2009).


This year, not so much. We knew this would be a challenging year, and that is exactly what we received. This picture really makes us laugh and we are looking forward to next year to see what we get!

Bubble FUN!

Brody L.O.V.E.S. bubbles! We enjoyed a cool December afternoon outside with bubbles.

Maybe I should lick the bubbles...

Am I doing something that I shouldn't?

Here, you try. Your turn.

My turn again, and again, and again....

Popsicle anyone?

Sweet boy

Yea! I finally blew some bubbles!

Milk Producer

Brody always wants to help me feed brother (baby Cash). Oh how I wish you could help me!

Here are some other times he has tried to help as well:

Christmas Cards 2010

After promoting Shutterfly for the free Christmas Cards, I never ordered. I was really excited about it in the beginning because i had never done a photo card before. My excitement slowly decreased with each passing day. I wanted to take a family pic, but "somebody" always had a reason to wait. I considered individual photos, but I didn't have any of myself that I wanted on a Christmas Card that was recent. Then I thought maybe just put the boys on the cards, even though I really wanted it to be the four of us. So 'discouraged Lindsay' just said to heck with it and never ordered Christmas cards.

Bad Mom award goes to me!

I did LOVE receiving all the ones that arrived in our mailbox, so thank you for thinking of us. Maybe I will have my ducks in a row for next year...

A Sick Start to December

We had a little bit of a rough start to the month of December. The Saturday after Thanksgiving Brody was running a 102 fever and Sunday was still 101 so I decided to call the after hours number at the pediatricians office and they said it is safe to treat a 102 fever at home alternating Tylenol and motrin every 4-6 hours but to call back if it got higher. So we went about our day. Brody stayed home from school that Monday and Tuesday with a 99 degree temperature, went back to school Wednesday and woke up from his nap with yucky eyes. I called the doctor and went ahead and scheduled an appointment for that afternoon especially since he has been prone to ear infections. Luckily Gabe is working from home and was able to make it a family outing. All four of us walked into the doctor, did the normal weight check and temp check that you do at every appointment, and were shown to our room. We get to go in quickly since we had baby Cash with us and he was under 2 months and they don't want the newborns waiting in the waiting room. The doctor came in, asked the symptoms (I thought he may have had croup), and started his examination of Brody. He checked the ears first and again Brody had an ear infection, wait, make that a double ear infection this time. Within about 2 seconds of listening to Brody's chest he diagnosed him with pneumonia. O.M.G!!!!!! That was NOT what I was expecting. I almost cried. We then had our doctor check the baby since pneumonia is contagious and he was clear. Thank goodness! We put Brody on an antibiotic, kept him home the rest of the week and stayed inside! He was acting completely normal so either he was on the up-swing or he had a mild case of it.

Two days later, Friday, we were back at the doctor because Cash had been congested for a few days and we wanted the doctor to make sure he was still clear. Nope! Cash had RSV and was ordered a chest X-ray only because of Brody's pneumonia case. Off we go to get the X-ray, it came back showing a spot in his lungs so he was also diagnosed with pneumonia. Ugh! Back to the doctors office we go. Cash was given a shot to hurry and get some anitbiotics in him. The pediatrician told us to keep an eye on Cash's breathing and to continue to suction and saline his nose. He also wrote a prescription for Cash. And told us what to do and where to go if we needed additional treatment over the weekend. He advised us to come back in the morning (Saturday) and see the other doctor where he would determine whether or not we needed a second shot...we didn't need the shot, things were looking pretty good at that point.

Us "trying" to remedy Cash's congestion with a humidifier.

Two days later, Sunday, I made another call to our pediatrician's after hours nurse for Cash, Brody still is acting fine. She was very sweet and asked me a few questions including: do his nostrils seem to flair when he inhales? YES. Does his chest seem to sink when he breathes? YES. She recommended us to go ahead and stop in at a place called A Cute Kids Urgent Care. This places sees kids after hours and on weekends. When the nurse was recommending us take him in, she did say that it isn't an emergency situation but that since he is so little (not even 6 weeks old), she would like for us to have a professional examine him. Gabe and I discussed what to do and agreed that we would continue to watch him a little longer at home before taking him in, if at all. About three hours later, Gabe was packing the baby up to take him into ACute Kids. I decided to stay home with Brody since it was almost bedtime and he 'needs' mommy to put him down. He throws a major fit if anyone else even tries to take him back for night night. After Gabe left, I called ACute Kids to let them know that our tiny guy was coming in, in case there was a wait, maybe we could get put on the list. The nurse on the phone said that they would love to treat Cash, but she recommended going straight to Children's Hospital, the Plano location. I immediately called Gabe and no answer. Called again, no answer. Again and again. I probably called 8 or 9 times before he answered. He took the baby to Children's and was seen right away. They looked at his vitals in a little triage room, was admitted to a room in the ER and did a more in-depth check of his vitals. They performed a deep suction to get out as much of the secretions as possible which Gabe said helped a ton. Baby Cash was also hooked up to a machine that checked his oxygen level. At this point they were not sure if he was going to have to stay overnight but it was getting close to the time where the baby was going to need to eat, so I had to go up to the hospital. Brody is still awake so I asked my sweet next door neighbor to come over until we could figure out other arrangements for Brody. When I got to the hospital at about 9:00 and the doctor had already seen Cash and taken another chest X-ray. I was able to feed Cash and the nurse had us give him a breathing treatment. A short time after that, we were given the final word that they wanted to keep him overnight (again because of his tiny-ness) and monitor his oxygen levels. We were admitted to a different room, out of the ER. Once we got settled my mom came up and stayed with me and Cash in the room. The doctor came in about 2am to talk to us about the spot in his lungs. We were originally told the spot was pneumonia, but this doctor said she wasn't so sure. She believe the spot was a build up of mucus. We were able to look at the X-ray on the computer and she explained EVERYTHING to us and answered all of our questions, which was so wonderful. After our visit with the hospital doc, Gabe left to go home and be with Brody. He wanted one of us there when Brody woke up in the morning so his morning routine wouldn't be interrupted. Gabe took Brody to school Monday morning and then headed up to the hospital. Nothing exciting happened overnight, or at all on Monday. Our pediatrician called me early Monday morning once he received the notice that we admitted Cash to the hospital. That meant a lot to me. The nurses and doctors at Children's in Plano couldn't have been nicer. My mom left late morning and we (Gabe, Cash, and I) hung out until we got to talk to the hospital doctor at 5:00 pm when she said it was ok for us to head on home. Cash's oxygen was just about perfect the whole time we were there which was awesome. We had an appointment scheduled with our pediatrician on Tuesday already for a follow up to the Friday/Saturday visits, so we went ahead and went on in to discuss the hospital stay. We were advised that RSV usually sticks around for a while, especially the cough. Gabe was continually using the saline and suction, which helped a ton. By the end of the week, it seemed like Cash's symptoms had just about disappeared. Praise the Lord!

This is so pitiful! My heart aches just looking at these pictures.

The "diaper" on his hand is where they put his baby IV in case they needed to give him any medication. Luckily, it was never used. It was an ordeal getting it in though. They put a diaper over it so he wouldn't be able to mess with it.

Daddy and Peanut

Mid-December, Gabe and I suffered from the stomach bug, and we think Brody did too. My first case, Brody and Gabe's cases seemed to be mild, then I got it again 10 days later and it was no bueno!!!

We are glad to all be healthy now. Cash and Brody are slightly congested at the moment, but we are keeping a very close eye on both of them. Thinking it is just that time of year. Hopefully that is all the illnesses we will encounter for a while.

A Private Blog

Starting tomorrow!

In 2 weeks...

we will become a private blog. If you haven't already, please send me your email via blogger comments, facebook, or email if you would like to receive an invite to continue reading our blog. We would love to share our family events and milestones with you, so please feel free to let me know you are interested in reading what we have to say!

We do have some wonderful news to share so, please stay tuned!

12 Days

This is a post by Gabe

I feel like people should hear this, here we go...

On December 30th I recieved a phone call from my boss letting me know the company I worked for would be shutting its doors on December 31st. I had been working for them and my previous employer who they were tied to for the past 5 years. I had become good at what I did, I had the opportunity to work in the companies in many facets, learn an amazing amount about business from marketing, to finance, to sales, to analytics, even opened roughly 50 small business in the 2 years I was doing the consulting piece. In all that time, I tried to be appreciative of all the skills I was learning and tried to take advantage of all the opportunities given to me. Also in that time, I discovered a lot about myself and what I wanted to do with my career.

A few years ago I decided I wanted to be in entertainment brand marketing. I love the entertainment business and I knew in the branding piece I could expand on my right brain/creative thinking. So over the years I have given myself outlets to use some of this while doing my day job. I developed several concepts from branding talent, to developing a couple website concepts. That was my release.

I feel I have had a very blessed life, sure I have had hard times, but for the most part I feel as if I was blessed a little more by God than the "average Joe". I don't feel a sense of entitlement or anything, I just feel I am blessed, so I always have tried to remain appreciative of the gifts God has given me, whether it was getting to meet my amazing wife when I was 16, graduating college, developing friendships with some amazing people, having a family that has always loved me no matter how reserved I have been, the amazing home we have been blessed with, and above all else the feeling of total security I feel in God having a plan for me and that he will take care of me and my family no matter how hard or good times can be.

All of these things have led me to 1/11/11. The day I will always remember as the day "the rest of my life" started.

When I was laid off, I did the only thing I knew to do and that was to stop, pray, think, plan, and execute. When I hung up the phone from my boss, I immediately dialed my brother and asked if he could get me a job at the restaurant he works at to make sure we would be financially sound for a few months. The next thing, I called my dad to tell him and ask him for help with any contacts he may have for a job search. Lindsay was at work, so I could not tell her yet. However, when she got home I had a job at a restaurant serving tables, I had my resume updated and was emailing people like crazy.

I can be "rough" sometimes and not everyone gets my humor, because I truly do appreciate those around me though I do not show it. I did not know how people would respond to me, because I hate asking for help and those who know me, know that is not me. Not that I help others as much as I should, but I just did not know what would happen. Needless to say, there are a lot of amazing friends and family members around me that must care a lot about me and my family because the hands reaching out to help were plentiful.

Saturday I went in to the restaurant to talk with manager and she gave me the job. Sunday I began my training (without any serving experience mind you), Monday I scheduled a Wednesday meeting with a guy who owns a creative agency here in McKinney that I know through a mutual friend, Tuesday I worked, Wednesday I woke up at 7:29 (LATE) for an 8:00 meeting. The whole drive I thought God was telling me I am not supposed to go to the meeting because I was running late, but I literally walked in to the little coffee shop (Spoons) at the strike of 8:00. Jeff Simpson (Owner of Day6 Creative) and his colleague were sitting there waiting. We introduced ourselves and began chatting.

I gave him a background of what I had done professionally and told him a little of what I wanted to do. I tried to tie the 2 together because they are different industries all together (aesthetic medicine to entertainment brand marketing). I decided to divulge a couple of my concepts and they both got excited discussing them. I then mentioned I would like to get into account management for an entertainment brand marketing agency. Jeff's eyes lit up. He looked at his partner and said "Gabe, I have to tell you... I am looking for an account manager right now". Day6 does illustration work, packaging, branding, etc. for Hasbro Toys (Nerf), Star Wars, App companies, etc. He did the style guide for the movie Star Wars Episode 3, but he did not have an account manager in place to leverage the work and find more business. So now he wants to expand that piece of the business. From there, the meeting turned from Jeff writing down contacts to put me in contact with to essentially an interview. Not just any interview though. A little background on Jeff, he is a very strong christian. He has built his business on his faith and will literally make business decisions based on his faith. I mentioned something along the lines of my faith is getting me through this time and from there the meeting went into another direction. I had laid out my professional background and I essentially gave him my life testimony. Not something you typically do in an interview. As the meeting went on, we got more and more excited about our "divine" meeting. Neither one of us had any clue about the other and again, I had no clue of any openings at his agency which currently has 9 employees. Jeff asked that I put together a proposal of what I can do for the company and what my plan would be. It was an amazing 1hour, 40 minute meeting in a little coffee shop in McKinney, TX.

That afternoon/evening I worked at the restaurant and had a million ideas running through my head and I knew I had to get them out. I was able to fix my restaurant schedule and Thursday I woke up and went to work on the proposal. I knocked it out and called Jeff. He said lets meet Friday (the next day) morning to discuss.

This time Jeff brought his co-owner/wife and we went through the proposal. The meeting again went really well. I was told I would hear from their business consultant soon to interview again. Monday (2 days ago) I spoke with her and the meeting went great. I was asked to meet with Jeff again the following day (yesterday). I met Jeff at his office, we walked outside, he stopped me on the side walk and said "we want to offer you a job." It was a great offer, it was my dream job, it is working with amazing people, so of course I said "yes". I look back now at the past 10 years and truly see where I was on a path to this. Every single thing I have learned and experienced has taught me what I need to know in order to perform this job well. It is too amazing.

There were times in all of this when I could not look at my kids in their eyes, but beyond that I felt ok. I felt like we were going to be taken care of. I know God is good, but never in a million years did I imagine a miracle such as this. I truly believe God has a plan for me, he will provide for me and I own nothing that is not his. He is the almighty.

There are 2 many people to list on this post that I need to thank, but you know who you are and just know something good is coming to you.

I hope this inspires you to find God and trust in him no matter what.

This Blog is Going Private

I'm doing it. So please send me your email addresses if you are at all interested in keeping up with us. Leave a comment (which I will delete once I receive your email), send me a Facebook message, or an email. I will probably convert at the end of the month and save all my December and January posts until after we move to private.

Please don't forget about us!

We have lots to update you on and just got some fantastic news we cannot wait to share...but you will have to stay tuned....

Overseas Lookers

Lately a lot of the blogs I read are starting to become "private." This is something I have been going back and forth with for months now. I read somewhere on a friends blog about how you can see where people are viewing your blog from....which is all over the world. We looked up our stats a few months ago and the number of "viewers" from overseas was a little unsettling with Gabe and I, mainly because of our kids. You never know what crazy person could stumble across your blog.

I realize I may loose a few readers, which I sincerely hope I don't, but this is something I am seriously considering. It just takes one extra step to login and I hope we are worth that extra step. I have also seen some people create a separate group of private blogs so you don't forget about us.

Does anyone have any positive/negative thoughts on making your blog private? I'm debating....