Ike is coming!

Tonight, my sister Jaclyn is at the hospital in Fort Smith awaiting her induction tomorrow morning. Ike is coming soon! She has had some difficulty dialating so she has been given medication tonight and prayerfully it will do it's job while she sleeps. My mom, Cheryl is there with her and the rest of us will travel there tomorrow morning in shifts. I am so excited to meet my new nephew. Please keep Jaclyn in your prayers as well as Mr. Ike.

Thanks!
Jennnifer

Today

I'm not real sure why I am still up tonight? It's been a full day. This morning we was Sophie's first dance class. It started at 10 am and by then we had already had an accident in the floor, an entire bowl of cereal spilled and a little painting incident while mommy was in the shower. Yes, this is normal and this is my life. :) We did finally make it to dance. Sophie wasn't so sure about it at the beginning. This is first experience with anything like this. She loves her Children's Church class, but that is her only experience thus far around other little ones in a structured environment. She finally warmed up to it after a few minutes and then she had a great time. I think Grace would have loved to join in! :) It is an hour long class and I was very impressed with the teacher. We'll be back next week and hopefully Sophie will be ready to join at the beginning and maybe she won't have dried paint streaks up and down her arms! :)

{Junie, Me & Neena }

After dance, I thought we'd stop by and say a quick hello to my mom (Neena) and Junie at my sister's house. I knew that they were going to be working there. Well, what was meant to be a few minutes turned in to an ALL DAY event. Grace went to sleep soon after we go there and Soph showed off her new dance moves. I think my mom was just tickled that we could just stop by without making a 3 hr long trip! It will be so nice when she is able to move into her new house here in town. (Hopefully her house will sell SOON!) We visited for a little bit, mom made us lunch and then we got to work! I called in some reinforcements (Dan & Mom Lisa) and by the end of the day we had eliminated several more boxes, and hung pictures in most of the house. This is a task since her walls are made of cement! This evening, Dan and I ran home for about an hour and cleaned our house before heading back there fot dinner. Again. (We've eaten there the past three night. Jac, honestly... this will not continue! :))She goes back to the Dr. tomorrow, so we should have some news of Ike's arrival soon. I'm praying that he comes in God's perfect time. Jac wanted him to come during President Bush's term, but it doesn't look like that is going to happen... Hopefully soon!!

Tomorrow, the girls and I have nothing going on. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Except staying at home and spending time together. Of course this includes playing, baths, cleaning, cooking, etc, but I am really glad to not have anything big that I am planning on that requires a lot of energy, physical or mental. This is a good feeling. On that I haven't had since about August.

Ok, now it is seriously time for bed!

More pics of Grace's party to come! :)

Happy 1st Birthday, Grace!

Sweet Gracie B.,

i only have a few minutes to write this before your official birthday will be over. it has been a good day. very laid back and i so enjoyed snuggling and playing with you. your birthday party was so fun last night and it was a true delight to see your expression when everyone sang to you. you soaked it right up and boy did you dig into your cake! too cute!

i love your age and your sweet, sweet spirit. you love to play peek-a-boo and to speed-crawl away from me when i try to change your diaper. you love your big sister and so much want to play with her at all times. you are cruising everywhere and are getting braver and braver. i know you will be walking soon. you love bath time and for some reason you have a strong affinity for the toilet bowl too so i have to be careful!

tonight when we were praying before dinner. i thanked God again for the miracle of your sweet life. tears pricked my eyes as i remembered this day last year. when you were born, but your little lungs weren't ready yet. i wanted so badly to hold you and nurse you. i was convinced that i could make you all better by holding you close. i couldn't and the next morning you were whisked away on an airplane to arkansas children's hospital three hours away from me. my heart was broken. when we first got to see you again that evening, your daddy and i cried and cried. it hurt so much to see with all the tubes and struggling to breathe. our Father was so near to us during that time. He held us close and gave us faith and peace and hope that you would be ok. it was during this time that we dubbed you, gracie b. since that is what you went by in the nicu. the name stuck and you will always be our sweet gracie b! your sweet doctor all of your nurses liked you so much. your only male nurse told me that he wanted a baby just like you one day. your uncle jeremiah is prone to say that too. :)

grace, you are such a blessing and i am so thankful to God chose to place you in our family. i know that your life is a miracle and a gift. this was confirmed to me even recently. me and daddy and sophie love you so very much as well as all your extended family. all of your grandparents are pretty sweet on you!

soon you will have a new cousin, mr. ike. you will be almost exactly one year older than him (i think, come on ike! we want to meet you!) and you'll have someone littler, some one to boss. :)

i love you sweet grace adeline. as adeline means, you are "under God's guidance" and i am so blessed to be your momma.

lets have an awesome second year! :)

love, mom

ps- now would be a great time to start sleeping through the night. don't you think? :)

Please pray!

Another Birthday Month in Brewster-ville!

January is another birthday month in the Brewer home! The four of us share 2 birthday months, September for Dan & Sophie and January for Jen and Grace. Tomorrow I will be twenty-seven. 27! And on Saturday, Miss Gracie B. will be ONE! We are planning a Winter ONEderland party for her and I am so excited!

I usually make invitation and incorporate a photo into it, but this year I ended up going with scrap-blog. It came together quickly and printed good at Wal-mart. I would have edited it some more, but somehow it got lost in cyberspace and I didn't want to start over. :)

Today, after church my little family is heading out of town for a few hours. We are going to Lowes to look for some organizers for my new craft center and of course to go to TJ Maxx! We'll hit the party store once more and eat a yummy dinner at On The Border courtesy of Jer & Suz's Christmas gift to us. I am looking forward to it!

This weekend has been pretty restful. Grace is learning to soothe herself back to sleep!! So, we have had two nights of uninterrupted sleep! (This is the BEST birthday present!! SLEEP!) And yesterday, I got a nap too. I'm on a ROLL! Sophie went to the farm with Pappy (Because he agreed with her that cows do indeed like stickers! She had to take some stickers to "her" cows, Kelly & Pretzel. She came up with those name on her own. :) The kid's got p-e-r-s-o-n-a-l-i-t-y!) and me, Dan and grace all got naps. :)

Now, I'm off to make some breakfast and to get ready to worship! :)

Oh Happy Day!

Debt-free is the New Rich

"Keeping up with the Jones' may be an American pastime, but I've got some news: the Jones' are in hock up to their eyeballs. Do you really want to emulate them? Then take a good look at what you're spending your money on. After all, getting out of debt is hard work. Don't make it harder on yourself by spending money on things you don't need. And remember: being free from debt is the new rich."


-Steve Scalici, CFP® is the Senior Vice President of Treasure Coast Financial, located in South Florida.

Read the entire article here.

Ten on Tuesday

1- it's almost wednesday, but maybe i can whip this out in 15 minutes!
2- i know i need to change my header. i know that is no longer Christmas-time. :( i know i need to take down my tree and all the other decorations and remove the two trees and decorations that didn't even get finished this year. aaaghh! i am so far behind.
3- my new cricut expression will be here tomorrow. i can't wait to try it out! i have three cartridges coming with it- plantin schoolbook, storybook (SO excited about) and doodlecharms. i might pull a daniel and go to the UPS loading place tomorrow morning. we're such tracking nerds!
4- i got a blackberry curve last night. i am so in love. especially since today i can browse the web on it. tomorrow i probably won't be able too. sigh. well, unless i beg my papa. hmmmm. we'll see. :)
5-grace i went to ft. smith today with mom & jaclyn for one of jac's dr. appt. please pray that she will begin to progress soon and that little ike will come in God's perfect time without a c-section!
6- we've been helping jac get moved into her super-cute new home this past week. it's adorable, and super sturdy with CEMENT walls. definitly the place to be in case of a tornado, not the best place to hang pictures. :)
7-i have 7 minutes left until wednesday. i am officially up past my bed-time.
8- i've still yet to look at the pictures we took over Christmas. again, i am wayyyy behind. it might help if i could locate the camera.
9- i love my super duper, handy husband. i got a vision of a laundry sorting solution for our little laundry room, well, nook and he built it tonight. i'm excited, the office is headed into a craft room. yea! now the rest of the house/garage won't be the craft room.
10- the girls are growing so fast. grace kept climbing up on sophie's bed tonight and turning the light switch off. over and over. she isn't even one yet. amazing! last night sophie and i were praying and she prayed, "dear lord, please help me to be four so i can go to school when i am five. i am three now and i need to be four so i can be five." too cute! sometimes i want them to grow and then they do all too fast.

midnight, i better go! as pooh & piglet would say, happy wednesday!