Thanksgiving Part 1

I thought this was a cute picture of Isaac. He wanted me to take his pic so I did. He is such a ham!



Aunt Margaret flew in the morning of T-Day to visit and then headed to NY. Believe it or not this was the first time Emma has ever met her! Margaret flew into Huntsville the day that Emma was born but didn't get to see her in the NICU and so this is the first time it worked out for us to see her. I am so glad we got to visit and Emma finally got to meet her. They have such a busy schedule but hopefully we can see her again soon.



Here are the three munchkins being so incredibly cute! Awhile back they started lining up in the hallway at Gabby's house and then they will say "ready, set, go" and take off down the hall. I love watching them play and interact together. So sweet.


Aren't they cute??

Ok, I've got lots more pics from Turkey day to share, but I just started reading Twilight and now that Emma is asleep, I must go read! I will try to post more pics tomorrow. We've got some cute cute pics from Thanksgiving!

Elmo Was A Blast!!

On Wednesday night we headed to Nashville with the Wheelers for Elmo. I think we all had a great time and I was really impressed with the show. It was very upbeat and kept the kid's attention really well. Emma got fussy a couple of times but she loved the show. Her favorite part was when all the characters would sing and dance. When they would stop to talk or something she would start yelling "more, more" and signing it at the same time. It was so cute! If you ever have a chance to go, I highly recommend it. The best part was our tickets were only $10 a person.

The Wheeler clan (Graham, Isaac, Beth, and Uncle Rob)



Daddy, Me, and Emma!



Elmo dancing. We took about a hundred pics I think and some were better than others. It was so dark during most of the show and our camera was having a hard time.


These are our friends from Athens. George was a Fiji with Kevin Givens and this is his wife and their son, Brooks. Brooks is only 5 days younger than Emma!

Another song/dance.

Several of the characters performing.

It's Almost Turkey Time!

I'm so excited b/c we leave this afternoon for Tennessee. Everyone is now over all of the sickness that has been going around so hopefully we can all enjoy some turkey.
Tomorrow night (Wed) is the big ELMO night in Nashville. We will ride down with Beth, Rob and the boys and probably eat dinner before the show. It doesn't start until 7pm so I hope Emma does well. She usually gets her bath at 7:30 and then hits the sack so she could be a wild child during the show or she might fall asleep! I can't wait to go and my camera will be ready!

On Thursday I think we will go to Aunt Kathy's for Thanksgiving dinner and then off to Sparta to my Granny Dunham's house. I am always so full after Aunt Kathy's but still manage to stuff more dressing in at my Granny's. This year I'm going to try and eat light. :)

I'm still debating on whether or not to go shopping on Friday. There is nothing that I really need so I probably won't go. The past few years George and I have always went to Belk and bought bed sheets and I told him last night we really need to get some more this year. Our sheets right now are so incredibly soft and I'm really hoping we can find the same kind.

On Friday we are also going back to Sparta to see my other Granny and Pa. We aren't having Thanksgiving dinner there this year b/c Pa was originally supposed to work but I'm sure Granny will find something good for us to eat. She always has the best food!

So we have a super busy week and are coming home on Saturday so we can put up our Christmas tree and decorations on Sunday. I'm really looking forward to that since Emma will be helping.

I hope everyone has a safe and happy Thanksgiving! I probably won't post anything new until we return. Then I will have lots of pics to share. Enjoy some turkey and dressing!!

Life With The Nebulizer

So far Emma has been handling the nebulizer okay. Last night was the first time we used it and she screamed the entire time. George also spilled some of the medicine on the floor. I felt like we were toturing her and it was pitiful. This morning George got up with her and he gave it to her all by himself and it was much easier b/c they watched Super Why (a PBS show) and that kept her occupied. The treatments take about 8 minutes or so and that's a long time to keep a mask with steam coming out of it in front of a toddler. But tonight I gave it to her by myself with the help of Super Why and we did just fine. It does stink that we have to do it twice a day but if it makes her better then we will gladly do it!

Also, earlier tonight we went as a family to the mall to see Santa and do some Christmas shopping. Up until now Emma has done wonderfully with Santa and the Easter Bunny. Not this time. When I sat her on his lap she screamed and cried and it was sooo pitiful. Santa was so great too and I love how he looks. She wasn't having it though. I wanted to buy just one picture but of course you have to buy 2 3x5's and 2 keychain pictures. Who in the world wants to spend $20-$30 on those pics?? Do they not realize that I just spent $80 on Christmas cards! I plan on getting her picture made with Santa again at Santa's village in a couple of weeks and I'll definitely have to buy one then.

After we left the crowded the mall we headed to Bridge Street. We went to a couple of stores and then to the pizza restaurant for dinner. George sat down with Emma while I got a high chair and our drinks. From the other side of the restaurant Emma started screaming "I LOVE YOU MOMMY!" It was so cute and I just smiled from ear to ear. There was a young couple around our age that just thought she was the cutest thing and they kept looking back and forth from Emma to me. She is such a joy and I love it when she says she loves me. :)

Tomorrow George is going to work since he missed 2 days last week and has tons of stuff to do so Emma and I are going Christmas shopping some more. We are going to attempt Toys R Us and a couple of other stores. I still can't believe Christmas is almost here. After that is my birthday, New Years, our wedding anniversary and then Emma's 2nd birthday. We have a busy couple of months!

Check back tomorrow night for pictures. I'll have to show some of Emma with her nebulizer. Good night!

Colors-Take 2!

I got Emma to do her colors again on video. It is so funny b/c she only wants to watch herself on the video camera and doesn't realize that I'm taping her. So she keeps trying to get behind me to see the screen.

Open The Door And See All The People! :)

Gabby has been doing this with the kiddos for awhile now and Emma loves it! They say "Here's the church, here is the steeple, open the doors and see all the people." So I will randomly catch Emma walking around the house and doing it with her hands and saying the words. This was caught on video about a month ago I think. Hope you enjoy!

Update on Emma Bemma

Gabby (Judy) and I took Miss Emma to the pulmonologist this morning for her nasty cough that has been going on for over 2 months now. The doctor says it is probably asthma related so we are going to try Pulmnicort twice daily for 2 months and we have a nebulizer with Albuterol for when she has bad coughing attacks. He said he could hear some movement in her lungs or something and her airways are probably a little swollen. So hopefully this will do the trick and we go back in 6 weeks. It doesn't really surprise me b/c they warned us in the NICU that most babies with chronic lung disease end up with asthma and she will probably grow out of it. So now Emma is on an antiobiotic for 3 weeks for her sinus issues, pulmnicort for 2 months and we are the proud owners of a beautiful nebulizer! Merry Christmas to us! :)

Sickness In The Air

Well we got the results from Emma's cat scan yesterday. Apparently she has Sinusitis in both sides and is now on an antiobiotic for the next 3 weeks. We are also going to the lung dr at 10am tomorrow.

In other news George and I have been under the weather. Tuesday night George spent the night in the bathroom and then I felt really bad yesterday and we are both finally starting to feel better today. My dear friend Tracy came and picked up Emma last night for about 4-5 hours and then G's parents got here around 10pm. It is super hard to take care of a toddler when you don't feel good!

And to top it all off, my pa was taken to St. Thomas today b/c he has 2 more blocked arteries. His main artery to his brain is 98% blocked and then another artery is 100% blocked. This has just been a very cruddy week! They will perform an arteriogram tomorrow and then schedule the surgery. So our family could use some good thoughts right now and hopefully things will start to look up soon!

HAPPY 17TH BIRTHDAY UNCLE CHAN CHAN!!!

Today is my youngest brothers birthday and oh boy does that make me feel old! The baby is turning 17 years old today. Wow! It seems just like yesterday that he was running around the house in his cowboy boots with cute little freckles on his face.

Chandler Graham entered this world when I was in 4th grade and living in Knoxville. I can vividly remember my dad taking my older brother Chad, myself, and 2 year old Hunter to the hospital. I think we got them a stuffed animal and maybe some flowers on the way. Hunter cried and was terrified when we went into the room. How dare a cute little freckled face boy take his place as the baby? :) All I wanted was a baby sister but Chandler was so cute that I soon forgot he wasn't a girl. I've got pics of us in the room but I can't get my scanner to upload them to the computer right now.

Our sweet Chandler suffered sickness for the first year of his life. He spent numerous nights in the ICU and was diagnosed with Hirschsprung's Disease. At 6 months old he underwent surgery and had a colostomy bag on the outside of the stomach. Talk about some fun times. Thanks Chandler for being so animated and making us work when it came to diaper time. :) Anyways, it was very serious and I'm so proud that Chandler is so strong and such a fighter b/c now he is completely normal. Okay, so maybe he isn't normal but he is healthy. :)

Chandler is now in the 11th grade and living in the big town of Houston, Texas. Emma, Uncle Arnold and I had the privilege of visiting Chandler and Hunter this past June. I miss my sweet brothers more than anything and am tearing up just writing this post. They are the best brothers in the world and they love Emma so much. So Uncle Chan Chan, today is your day. I know you are in school but I hope your 17th birthday is amazing and I wish I could give you a big big hug! I'm so proud to have you as my baby brother and I love you! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Hunter, Me, and Chandler in June 08 at H's graduation. Chandler looks just like my dad at that age!

Chandler after he got his drivers license!

Emma Bemma and Uncle Chan Chan as she likes to call him.

She loves her Chan Chan!

Come back inside Chan Chan and play with me!

I wish I could get my scanner to work properly b/c I know it isn't the operator...I've got some cute pics of Chandler when he was little that I want to share.

Thanks for looking!

Guess Where Emma's Going Next Week???

To see...
ELMO LIVE!!!

G-O-R-G-E-O-U-S!

This is the cute little sweater dress that I bought at Baby Gap last night. Although George doesn't really like it, I think it is beautiful. :) Today we decided to tackle pictures for our upcoming Christmas card and here are some of my favorite shots. I won't tell you which one we will use for the cards, but you will find out when you receive yours. I think the pictures turned out awesomely fantastic and couldn't be happier. Enjoy!

Gotta Love Shopping For Little Girls!

So tonight my dear friend Tracy and her daughter Barbra watched Emma so George and I could have a date night. We don't do those very often and I have to say we had an awesome time! We ended up watching a funny movie and went to a couple of stores at Bridgestreet before calling it a night.

I've been wanting to get Emma a cute dress for Turkey day so we went into the new Baby Gap store. They have so many cute outfits that I could seriously go bankrupt shopping for Emma. Girls are just so easy to buy for and I find myself slapping my wrist constantly so I don't buy everything I see. So hard. Anyways, here is the awesome little dress and tights that we bought tonight and we got a 30% discount! We saved almost $15! They also had some really cute red shoes that I wanted to get but man they were $25 and I just couldn't bring myself to buy them. Maybe I can find some cheaper ones at Target. Let me know what you think of this cute outfit!

Some New Pics

I don't want ya'll to forget how cute Emma is so I snapped a couple of pics to share. Her hair is getting so long! Look at that cute smile too. :) She was playing with her crayons a minute ago and I took this.


This is from last week. The girl loves her stickers!


We are rather positive she is working on her 2 year molars b/c she has all of her other teeth and has been gnawing on her fingers like crazy! She has also a temp in the 99s which is what she does when she's teething. Sometimes she will put all of her fingers in her mouth and accidentally bite them.

More to come later! George and I have got to take a pic for our Christmas cards. We might attempt to get one today. Thanks for looking. :)

And We Are Back!

Sorry blog readers, I've been slacking in the posting department. Emma has just been more of a handful recently and she does not like for me to get on the computer when she's around. Unless she's sitting in my lap and banging on the keyboard! She requires my full attention all day and if I try to sit she says "mommy, get up!" The first few times it was really cute, but man it can get annoying. If George gets up with her in the morning she will come to my side of the bed and pull my covers off saying "get up!" Then at night when she goes to bed I usually go to bed too and bypass the computer. I promise to start being better in the next few weeks. I've hardly even taken a picture recently.

On to other news...Emma has had a cough for the past 2 months or so now. It will disappear for a couple of days and then show up again. We first tried amoxicillin and then a couple of weeks ago we tried augmentin. Well after her last dose on Friday the silly cough showed back up super nasty and Emma's been horse. I took her to Dr. Dudley today for the 4th time in over a month and now we are doing steriods! She's taking the 5 day tablet and I really really hope this clears it up. Poor Emma just rolls around in her bed trying to breathe and the cough sounds so nasty that it breaks my heart. She woke up a couple of times last night and was crying "mommy" so I went to check on her and she just felt so rotten.

Also, on Tuesday we are taking her for a CT Scan of her sinuses. Dr. Dudley wants to see if she has stuff clogged up there and it can't get out. I'm not sure what the plan of action if that is the case but I guess we will know more next week.

And lastly, we talked about going back to Dr. Mahesh, the pulmonologist. We don't think she has asthma b/c she doesn't wheeze, but something could be irritating her airways. So lots of things in the works right now hopefully to get my princess back to 100 percent! It breaks my heart when she doesn't feel well. :(

Check back tomorrow and I will try to post some new pics and share some more of Emma's newest tricks. Today Mrs. Tracy volunteered to let Emma come over and play tomorrow so G and I might go watch a movie or something. She doesn't know it yet, but I think we might just take her up on the offer. Be expecting a call Tracy! :)

Christmas In November!

Emma's big Santa gift this year from us is the KidKraft kitchen featured below. Since she doesn't quite understand Christmas yet and we will be traveling to TN, we decided to give it to her today. Daddy and Emma assembled the kitchen and it took approximately 3 hours or so. The final product is so pretty and Emma loves her new kitchen. It is very sturdy and she should be able to play with it for several years. So Merry Christmas sweet girl!

Daddy and Emma hard at work.


Emma testing out the stove...



Another view...


It's more fun to hide in the refrigerator!

Turn around...

Thanks for the help with the door Daddy!

Where'd Emma go?

And the final product with the new proud owner!

Even Princesses Eat Cheerios!

This morning when Emma was ready to eat her cheerios she wanted all of her princesses to sit with her and eat. So here is Emma, Ariel, Cinderella, and Belle. How cute is that?

The ONE Year Anniversary of NO OXYGEN!!!

Wow, I can't believe it has been one whole year since Emma came off her oxygen. I do not miss it one bit. I can remember back to the first week she was home and how the first few nights George and I hardly slept at all. We were constantly turning the lights on to make sure her color was good and that her oxygen was still in her nose. Miss Diva pants liked to pull the tubes out and of course she couldn't breathe on her own without it so she caused a few scares. It was such a pain in the butt. We came home with 2 tanks, a big blue oxygen compressor which was later replaced by liquid oxygen that was in a huge silver tank. Both of these were rather loud and scared our poor Braxton to death. I think he spent most of the first week barking at the compressor. Then we had the tubes and stickers. I think we had 25 feet of tubing which isn't much at all. Most of the time we kept the compressor in the living room and that's where Emma stayed except for bedtime. I was always getting the tubes hung on stuff like the couch or tables and poor Emma's head would get jerked around. It makes me cringe just typing this! Then we have the stickers. That's what held the oxygen tube on her face. We had to change them out every few days or so and of course, they hurt Emma when we changed them. Definitely don't miss those either. I know she needed it all and that's all that mattered but it didn't stop me from complaining about it. I can remember George's first day back to work after she came home and it was on a Friday. Not long after he left I needed to pump. Emma was alseep in her bassinet a few feet from me so I pumped for about 15 minutes. I go to check on her and somehow she had managed to take her oxygen out of her nose and she was as white as a ghost. I started to freak and ran over to the compressor and upped her oxygen for a few seconds. Her color came back but mommy felt like the worse person in the world. Emma was constantly pulling stunts like that but as she got older it wasn't as bad. So that's what is was like having oxygen. Now on to the pics...

Emma on the way home from the hospital. I wish I had counted how many times George asked me if Emma's color was good. We were so scared.




Emma last year on Halloween. Helmet and oxygen!





Mommy and Emma on Halloween!




November 1st...the BIG day! Dr. Mahesh made the call and took off her oxygen.
Mommy cried a little.




Dr. Mahesh and Emma showing off her pretty face. NO TUBES!




Emma's friend Ella and her daddy at their appt too. Ella had to go home on O2 but not as long as Emma. I kept her stickers on for a bit and then took them off. Such a great day!




Emma jumping with no oxygen!

And again with her helmet off.

What a wonderful year it has been and my sweet little Emma has grown so much. I miss my little baby so much at times but I don't miss the oxygen and the helmet. She was such a trooper through it all and I'm so glad that she won't remember any of it. I know I've rambled in this post but I want Emma to look back and read this one day. Thanks for reading!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Last night we enjoyed Emma's 2nd Halloween at my friend Tracy's. She had an awesome party with tons of food, drinks, and friends. We couldn't have asked for a better time and Emma was so incredibly cute and loved trick or treating.

This was our host, Raggedy Ann!


Just a glimpse of the food we had. Tracy also had a bonfire that we grilled hot dogs and marshmallows on and we had chili, hot cocoa, punch, tons of chocolate, and so much more. George and I were stuffed last night! I think Emma ate nothing but candy all day yesterday but she still went to bed by 9pm.



Here is the little puppy dog. Tracy had all of the candy in her front living room so Emma wanted to hang out in there all night. We spent all day with Tracy yesterday then went home to get ready. When we arrived back at 6pm Emma walked in and said, "where's the chocolate?"


I think Daddy was having too much fun! He kept stealing Emma's puppy face.


Emma on her way to get some candy. She was such a trooper and would walk right up to the door and wait for her candy. She kept trying to take all of the candy from the people! That's my girl!


This is the very first house we went to and I bombarded this guy with tons of pics! We had to apologize afterwards for all of the flashing from my camera. But he understood it was her first time trick or treating.


And Emma's 2nd house. This lady was so so sweet and gave Emma candy that didn't have peanuts so she could eat it herself. How nice was that?

I think we hit up maybe 5 houses and Emma's hands were getting cold and she wanted to eat her candy.

Emma and her daddy again...

Emma and mommy!

Thanks so much for having us over Tracy. We had a blast spending Emma's 2nd Halloween with you and your family/friends. Can't wait for next year!