March Madness

So this is way over due. We have had a lot of exciting things going on this month and it's still not over. Sorry for so many pictures but I have a lot of updating to do!

This is Haylee in her big girl bed...we started her in her "new" bed the night before her real birthday (March 1st.) She didn't do well AT ALL. I read her books and tried to lay down with her and well, she ended up in our bed. And this habit continued for a few weeks...she would fall asleep on the couch with me...lay in bed...and then wake up at 3am and want to get in the bed with us, and of course I couldn't resist. But I will report that as of 2 nights ago she is sleeping ALL NIGHT completely by herslef in her bed...and she also GOES to sleep in her bed and doesn't have to fall asleep with me. :)

Haylee also got her first hair-cut this month. Her hair is much much easier to deal with now that it doesn't knot up and have a million tangles. And she did such a great job! She just sat there in my lap and let the lady cut her hair. I can tell she's going to a be a little priss pot!

We had a mini-party for Haylee's actual birthday because we were having her party the next weekend. I made baked spaghetti her favorite and bought a little ice cream cake which she loved!!

Uncle BoBo, Aunt Tina, and Josie (Solon's Dad, sister and Dad's girlfriend) drove up from SC for Haylee's birthday party. We enjoyed having them here and spending time with them. They spoiled Haylee like always!

This is Haylee making her GRAND entrance. Doesn't she look like a little diva with her sunglasses raised that way?

The cake table. We had a lady from church make her cake and she did such a great job! And she takes the money from the cakes and donates it to Breast Cancer. I thought that was really neat and I was glad to make the donation...did I mention that her cakes are to die for!! YUMMY!

She also mad Haylee a little smash cake...well it actually wasn't THAT little...it was a pretty good size cake! But it was super cute dontcha think?

Haylee really enjoyed it!
The favor table. A lot of our decorations were things we already have! How convienent!

We also played musical chairs...it was interesting try to get Haylee to play...she started losing patience and so did I...hehe

All of Haylee's friends. We had a pretty good turnout I think.

GGLiz with Haylee.

(Thank you GGLiz for all you did to make my party special!)

Ms. Josie and Grandpa BoBo!

And here the professional pictures that Lynn took of Haylee. They all turned out so good! Lynn is very talented. Now I've just got to get around to ordering some prints!!

I did order this collage in a 16X20 to put in her new room! It is adorable! I love it!!

....and on to the big news...

SHE'S HERE!!

Charlotte Elizabeth Presley was born March 10th at 9:20pm to Micah and Victoria Presley.

She was 6lbs 6oz.

So beautiful! I am so excited to see her. We will be traveling to GA Easter weekend to visit with my sister and her family. My parents are also flying in from Germany the week before so we get to see them too!!

YIPPPEE! 2 weeks to go.

Oh and did I mention that me and Solon are off to Wilmington tomorow for a romatic weekend! Haylee is going to stay with GGLiz and we have the weekend to ourselves. It is more than needed! I know we are going to have a relaxing and stress free time!!

Haylee Birthday Pictures

https://www.collages.net/ConsumerSite/GuestLogin.aspx?eventcode=538192
Click here to see them! They turned out great!

NEW GLASSES!
Finally, they are long over due. I can now see perfectly! And I am sad to admit that I have been driving with almost total blindness...(I couldn't even read the first line on the chart) that's some kind of bad. And my headaches should go away or so the eye doctor said, because I no longer have to squint at people to see who they are hehe ;)

Let it snow!!

I love snow, it's so refreshing and just beautiful! We rarely get it here in eastern NC. They have called for it several times this winter all ready and FINALLY their predictions were right! It started falling around 11pm last night, I'm guessing it fell through the night because we got about an inch and a half. This morning however it turned into sleet, which is just yucky.

As soon as Haylee looked outside she said "Dats snow out der." haha I have no idea how she knew it was snow, she just knew. I decided I HAD to take her out in it, because last year it snowed and we were both stuck inside sick. So she had to experience her "first" snow, even though it was icey and watery snow by now. So I cooked us a nice breakfast and then we suited up to go out...

(Please disregard the dark circles under my eyes...I was so tired last night I didn't take off my eye make up, I didn't know it was that bad until I took the picture :)

Haylee wanted to build a snowman...and YES she did help build our mini-snowman.

She's trying to teach Daddy how to build one...

And there it is on the bottom left, if you can see it.




Oh and did I mention that Madison loved the snow just as much as Haylee. I haven't seen her that happy in a while. :)



We tried to get a good one of all three of us but we only got Mommy and Daddy. We were getting wet because of the sleet that was coming down so I gave up on a family picture and we went inside.


Haylee didn't really want to.




On another note...we had our Fresh Grounded Faith conference last night. It was canceled this morning so I was a little upset about that. But it was AWESOME last night and I'm excited that I got to be a part of it. And the picture above is of the "surprise" guest. Can you guess who???

It was Abby from The Biggest Loser. I was soooooo excited because me and Solon watched the entire season because of her. I thought she was the biggest inspiratio (and I didn't mean that literally).. If you didn't watch it, she lost her entire family in a car accident (a 2 week old, 5 yr old, and husband.) I just cried and cried when she first told her story on the show. And last night when she spoke she was just so full of joy. Only God can give that kind of peace. She has such an amazing story!!

Thank you Jesus for my family!

MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY!!

So what have we been up to lately? Well Haylee has been keeping me busy busy. She can say just about everything and she WILL repeat just about everything! Some of her favorite things to say is"No Mommy," "I not Mommy," "I want that Mommy.." "I don't want that Mommy." You see the trend here is all of her phrases end with MOMMMY! I remember when I couldn't wait for her to say Mommy...it went from Mama to Mommy and it just melted my heart. And NOW...It's Mommy, Mommy, Mommy ALL of the time. And if I sound frustrated, I'm not. It's still music to my ears. But she does test my patience from time to time.

As for me, one of my goals this year was to get more involved with our church. After prayer and conversations with Solon, I decided to become our new Nursery Coordinator. I realize going in that this is going to be a tough job and there are a lot of changes to be made, but I know that this is in God's plan for me. I was also asked to sing on praise team for a new Wednesday night service we are starting. I am probably only going to do it every other Wednesday so I don't get burnt out but I am very excited about that too!!

Solon has started his BLET training. He is in his 4th week. I'm not sure I can say he in enjoying it, because it is a really difficult school. He wakes up every Mon, Tues, and Wed at 5am to go to PT (physical training) and is in class from 7:30am-5:00pm EVERYDAY! So it's hard work. He has already had 5 or 6 test that he has done very well on. I am so proud of him. He will graduate in May and hopefully have a job waiting for him. We are trusting God for that part! I will have to get a picture of him in his "uniform" to post on here. I have always liked a guy in uniform! ;)

So we have been busy busy busy with everything. And in the midst of all of that I am trying to plan our big girls 2nd birthday party. I CANNOT BELIEVE IT!!! She has grown up so much and so fast. I hear once they turn 2 something clicks and they are a completely different child...I'm preparing myself for the terrible twos, but I plan on enjoying every minute of it because before I know it she will be in her teenage years and I will look back on 2 years old and think it was a breeze. So I want to enjoy every minute of her life...because it just goes by too quickly.

Our birthday gift to her is going to be giving her a brand new "big girl" room. I already have everything picked out. It's going to be super cute! I will for sure post pictures once we get it finished. I plan on working on it the weekend before her birthday so on her actually birthday she will be able to sleep in her big girl bed. YIPPPPEEE!

Well they are calling for snow or well a mix on Friday and Saturday. I'm kind of hoping they are wrong this time, although I would love a big snow, but because I am supposed to be going to a women's conference here in town. It's called Fresh Grounded Faith. Jennifer Rothchild is going to be the guest speaker.

I am looking forward to great things!! Nighty night everyone!

Pink Eye

Yes this is my Haylee boo...still pretty as can be with Viral Pink Eye!!

It all started Saturday night when her left eye started to have like a creamy discharge. I thought maybe something had gotten in her eye or it could of had something to do with this 30 degree weather we are having. But she woke up Sunday morning and her left eye had gotten worse. I was supposed to have nursery duty at church and decided that because there was a chance it could be something contagious, we would just stay home. Well it's a good thing we did because it only got worse through out the day.

I called our doctor...who by the way is AWESOME and has the clinic phone forwarded to his house phone on the weekends. He said that it could be an allergen but that if it got worse and she started to run a fever then we could take her to the after hours clinic. Well around 4 or so she had gotten alot worse and it had spread to her other eye. I just couldn't bare for her to suffer all night so we took her in.

The doctor there said that it had been going around and she more than likely had a viral case of Conjunctivitis...which is pink eye. The problem is that with a viral case there's nothing they can give them except for some drops to clean it out, but nothing that will make it better any faster.

So I stayed home from work yesterday and today and the picture above was taken Sunday night at the after hours clinic and although she wouldn't sit still long enough today for me to get a good picture of her...you can trust me that she looks MUCH MUCH better, and tomorow she will go back to day care and I will go back to work.

I will admit that I got a little taste of what being a stay at home mom is like and I have really enjoyed it. I love my job, but some days I do wonder what it would be like to be with Haylee all day everyday. I think I can see doing some part time work in the future.

Oh and I haven't had time to get my Christmas pictures uploaded but I will get those on here as soon as possible!!
Sorry about the long wordy posts....

What Faith Can Do

This song just touches my heart. I know I have not posted in a while (I'm sad to admit..since Thanksgiving!) But my family has had a lot going on in Decemeber not just the normal hustle and bustle of Christmas but we've had some hard times hit home. And now that I say that I'm thinking to myself it really isn't all that bad...but the storm doesn't seem as bad once you have gone through it and can see the sunshine.

On Dec 1st, my husband lost his job. There had been some issues going on for a few months and it all boiled down to poor management and lack of character. That's what they blamed him for but I believe it reflected on the leadership more then it did him. So here we are Christmas time and having to face the reality of living off of one salary and the lesser of both of our salaries. I knew my salary would not be able to provide. But God ALWAYS provides.

I surpised myself in how calm and collected I was when my husband told me the news. He was upset and discouraged. And I was full of hope. I had a peace about everything and knew that it was going to be okay.

I just can't even explain what God has done inside of me through out this month. He gave me hope from the beginning and continue to strengethen my hope and my FAITH. Faith is not just being a christian and believing IN God...it's believing THAT God will keep his promises and knowing that no matter the circumstances, he will make a way.

I found myself one Sunday morning a few weeks back singing an old worship song while I was in the shower...
"God will make a way, where there seems to be no way. He works in ways we cannot see, he will make a way for me. He will be my guide, hold me closely to his side. With love and strength for each new day, he will make a way..."
That morning our pastor preahced about hope, and we ended service with that very song. God was speaking to me through that song.

Well throughout this month my husband applied for probably 30 jobs. He had some good leads...but nobody called him back. Somewhere in the midst of searching for jobs he felt called to be a police officer. I can't even begin to tell you about how EVERYTHING and I mean EVERYTHING fell perfectly into place afrter that point. We had people at our church that we didn't even know were connected to the police that wanted to help us and helped him get his foot in the door. And then he found out he had to go to school, BLET (Basic Law Enforcement Training) and I had no idea how we were going to pay for it. And God came through for us yet again and we had a special family member offer to pay for it. Then we were worried about having to live off of my income and him go to school...and he was going to try and get a part time job at night. Or go to night school possibly and work during the day.

We knew that this was God's plan for us and that eventually things would fall into place as they should. This whole time my husband had tried to apply for unemployment but we weren't holding our breath because we knew his company would probably try to fight it. Well Christmas Eve I had to work half a day (I work at a bank) and that morning I got to work and checked our account like I normally do and I was just filled with so much Joy when I saw a direct deposit from unemployment. I believe my co workers can tell you that I was so much filled with joy that I was jumping up and down. Now my husband would be able to go to school full time AND we would have a second income! I can't tell you how many times I thanked God that day.

My husband started class yesterday and was so excited to come home and tell me about it. (I have been home yesterday and today with Haylee because she somehow developed pink eye over the holidays.) But I am so proud of my husband and how he has been faithful to his calling. And I have to tell you that although I had peace and hope, I still had some doubt and fear. Was God reallly going to pull through, Is this really his plan for us, Is this the right thing? But now I know this is the right thing and that God ALWAYS pulls through...

I've seen dreams that move the mountains...Hope that doesn't ever end....
That's what faith can do.