No more sickness! I’m done.

Last week was really rough for me. It started out nice, with a baby shower on Sunday for my sister Adrienne (who’s due in less than a month!) and a lazy Monday since the kids were out of school. I was excited because my parents were keeping my nephew Nathan for the week (he’s a couple months younger than Brian), and I was looking forward to spending some time with him. But then I started feeling strange Monday afternoon- kind of achy and tired. I also started getting other classic fever symptoms, with shivering for a while followed by periods of sweating. Tuesday and Wednesday went by with no improvement, so I decided to go to the doctor Thursday. He tested for the flu (which came back negative), and told me it was probably a virus and would have to run it’s course. After taking the kids to their dentist appointment that afternoon (it was Brian’s first time!), I felt absolutely horrible and laid on my mom’s couch for an hour trying to recuperate. I felt a little better Friday, which was encouraging, so we decided we could make it to my grandmother’s 80th birthday party on Saturday, and I would just be careful to keep my germs to myself. Saturday morning we hopped in the car and drove to Memphis for the party. I had a bad sinus headache, but other than that I wasn’t feeling too bad. We made it through the party, but the headache got worse, causing me to throw up in the car as we were leaving to go home. After some good medicine I felt pretty decent, just a little wiped out. (Acetaminophen, aspirin, and caffeine are a miracle-working combination!) Sunday I felt much better and got to spend the day visiting with my family while my brother Joseph and his wife Nicole were in town. Monday I even got to go to the zoo with Joseph, Nicole, and Nathan before they headed back home to Tennessee. I now have some congestion and an annoying cough, but at least I’m over the weird fever! I’m not sure what’s wrong with me; I’m hardly ever really sick, but I’ve had to go to the doctor twice in the last few months! I hate to say it, but it looks like my age is trying to catch up with me. :)

Just before I got sick, I had my mom chop off about 20 inches of my hair for Locks of Love. My mom is so brave! She only flinched a little. :) Jay says my body was in shock and that’s why I got sick.

Before

After

Me and hair

Here are some pictures from our trip to the zoo:

Cousins!

Gorilla

Brian mesmerised by birds

Jewel the elephant

New penguin exhibit

Cutest penguins ever!

And Jay posted some pictures from Jack’s first birthday party back in November. Here are some highlights:

Brian and Jack (second cousins) trying to play with the same toy

Simpson family: David, Siobhan, and Jack

Blowing out the candle

Cake face!

Well, January is almost done and it’s been a doozy! Next month I will have a new niece! Craziness!

Brian is 2!

My “baby” turned 2 on December 31st. Poor Brian’s New Year’s Eve birthday kind of gets swallowed up in Christmas. But I am so thankful for my sweet little boy! It’s hard to believe that 2 years ago we welcomed him into our family like this:

And now he looks like this:

Such a handsome little fellow! (No, I’m not biased!) He’s a handful, though. His 2-year-old tantrums are becoming more frequent, along with lots of “mines!” and “no!”. He is stubborn and temperamental, but he can also be so sweet and loving. I had forgotten what this age was like with my other two kids, but it’s coming back to me. I won’t wish it away… time already flies as it is!

We’ll have a little family celebration tomorrow, with cake and more presents! Happy birthday, Brian Gabriel Parker!

Christmas is almost here!

It has been a busy but good December so far. It’s hard to believe Christmas is this Sunday, but even harder to believe that we are almost actually ready for it! Just a couple of last-minute gifts, and then wrapping, and we are ready to continue the celebration of Jesus’ birth! We have already celebrated a good deal with programs and parties; now things are starting to slow down so that we can really reflect on the “Reason for the Season.”

Our family has been a part of 3 Christmas programs this year. The first weekend in December we had the children’s musical at church, “Christmas in Egypt”, and each of us played a part– Jay was Joseph, I was Mary, Brian was young Jesus, and James and Eliza were Egyptian children, along with the rest of the kids’ choir. I was concerned about how Brian would behave during the show, but it turned out really well. He did a lot of running around during the songs, but the kids singing did a great job of ignoring him. Brian basically stole the show with his dancing during the song “Birthday”. There is a video on Facebook that my parents recorded; maybe I will be able to post it here someday. Here we are in our costumes:

The second Christmas program we participated in was our church’s “It Can Be a Wonderful Life”, on December 10th and 11th. I am a member of the choir, and the kids’ choir sang one song with us, so James and Eliza got to be a part of that one, too! It was the same program we did last year, with a few changes, so it wasn’t too difficult to get ready for it. It really helped me get in the Christmas spirit!

Tuesday, December 13th, the 3rd graders at Collegeville Elementary performed “Christmas at the OK Corral”. James sang with the choir, and also had a part square-dancing with a few other kids during one of the songs. He did great!

Despite all the rehearsals for the various programs, we still managed to make it to the Little Rock Christmas parade, an annual tradition for our family. Here we are in our hats after the parade:

And here is our Christmas card photo, with our kids all dressed up in their Christmas finery:

James (8), Eliza (6), and Brian (almost 2!)

I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas! I am so thankful that God sent Jesus as a baby. He was (and is) exactly the kind of Savior we needed.

Pictures from the last few months

I can’t believe it’s almost Christmas! Jay has just gotten some pictures posted from October and November, so I thought I would show some of the highlights here on the blog.

On October 15th, we attended my cousin Brent’s wedding in Memphis. We took the opportunity to get a few family photos:

Parker family

Scoggin family (expanding rapidly)

Benjamin and Bridget

Mayo sisters

Dad and Mom (also known as Pappy and Mammy)

Me and my quickly-growing baby

I have already blogged about “Halloween in Wonderland” here. Fun times!

Jay’s grandmother passed away a few weeks before Thanksgiving, and we drove to Prentiss, MS, for the funeral. It was a wonderful celebration of a life well-lived! Some pictures from our celebration:

Brian looking all grown up

My dressed-up kids

Family members of Cathleen Clearman Parker

Eliza lost both of her top front teeth in November (one on our way home from Mimi’s funeral!) Now she can sing “All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth…”:

This mischievous little boy will be 2 in just a few days! I wouldn’t be able to believe it, except that he sure can act the part (he’s trying to win some sort of award for the most “no’s” said in one day):

We spent Thanksgiving in Alabama with Jay’s family, including his 98-year-old grandmother. We are so glad to be able to spend time with her when we can!

That brings us to December, which gets its own post. Hope you enjoyed this visual extravaganza of our amazing autumn!

No-November

Well, there might as well have been no November; it was kind of a blur. But when I was discussing it with my kids the other day, they decided that it sounded like I was getting on to someone named “Vember”. I thought that was kind of funny! But seriously, between being sick (still don’t know what was up with my stomach, and Jay had respiratory stuff all month) and Mimi’s funeral, and then Thanksgiving, there was not much time for anything else. I am so overwhelmed that I can’t even make myself do housework most of the time. It’s kind of depressing, actually.

And now it’s December. Merry Christmas! This weekend our whole family is participating in our church’s children’s musical, “Christmas in Egypt”. James and Eliza are in the choir, and Jay and I are playing Joseph and Mary with Brian as toddler Jesus. We did this musical 5 years ago, with Eliza as Jesus and James in the preschool choir. You may remember our Christmas card that year:

Brian is half a year older than Eliza was, which doesn’t seem like much, but I’m afraid it’s going to make a big difference. He is right at that edge of sweet toddler/terrible two-year-old, and I don’t know which one will predominate that night. We’ll see. Right now Jay and I are scrambling to learn our lines and I am trying to find my voice for the solos I sing in the program. We really intended to be better prepared, but we kind of got caught up in life. No sign of it slowing down anytime soon, either!

Next week the adult choir will present their Christmas program, which I am also in (just as a member of the choir, though!) Rehearsals for that run Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights, with the program on Saturday night and Sunday afternoon. After that hopefully we can do some Christmas shopping! And I would like to decorate the house someday, but it will have to wait until I can get it looking a little less like a tornado zone. Which I should probably be doing right now. Hmmm….

As for other matters, Jay is finally getting better after a round of antibiotics, my stomach is mostly back to normal (just a strange feeling every now and then), and the kids are all doing great. James and Eliza are enjoying school as much as they can, and Brian is still my sweet boy when he wants to be. He is so funny! This morning while I was changing his diaper, he said, “Booty is cold!” He can sing all the words to “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” and is learning the “ABC” song, but his favorite thing to sing is Justin Bieber’s “Baby, baby, baby, oh”, thanks to Eliza. :) Even with all the craziness going on, life is good!