A Fun Weekend with Family

This past weekend, my dad and one of my brother's came to New Orleans to visit. We did a lot of fun stuff in a short amount of time. Here's some of the stuff we did....Saturday night-ate crawfish! yummy Sunday-Voodoo BBQ and Commander's Palace (soft shell crab, strawberry shortcake...wow!). Monday-Carriage Ride in the Quarter, Cafe Du'Monde for Beignets, a ride down the Mississippi on the steamboat Natchez, Burgers at the Clover Grill, and of course my brother had to see Bourbon St., but since it was 10 am, it was relatively calm! Probably the only time you can say that about Bourbon St. It still smelled nasty though. Here's a few observations from this weekend: Peyton was a trooper despite not having a nap all day. It's always fun pulling up to one of the most expensive, exclusive, world-famous, and greatest restaurants in New Orleans(Commander's Palace) in an old beat up 14 year old Buick LeSabre with four people and a baby crammed inside. We had great laughs about that, and I'm sure the valets did too. Where else can you go and find people who spray paint their body's metallic colors and stand still for money all day long? New Orleans is the greatest. Their is SO much history here. Blond headed, blue eyed, fair skinned people need sunscreen when outside for eight hours...who was the only one that didn't get burned? PEYTON! You can defintely tell we're all related...Peyton was the oddball this time. I'm sure people were wondering if I had adopted her. The trip was a lot of fun, and I hope they can come back and visit!

My dad and Skylar at the Quarter View restaurant before digging into some hot crawfish.




It's interesting taking a baby to Commander's Palace. But she loved the icecream. I'm sure the clean up staff appreciated Peyton and the suprises she left behind for them.


An after dinner walk outside Commander's Palace.


My dad, Peyton, and Skylar in front of St. Louis Cathedral.


Skylar, Peyton, and the fat pregnant woman holding up the Metallic guy in the Quarter.


Skylar and Peyton on the Natchez


This was after our long day in the Quarter. Notice our red faces.

American Idol Last Night

Of course I've been watching American Idol this year. There's nothing else on tv anyway really. But AI is starting to make me mad. Matt in the bottom three??!!! Come on people! He may not be the very best or may not win, though I like him a lot, but he's certainly better than Megan! And Allison in the bottom three last week?!!! She's really good too, and only 16! Actually, I'll go ahead and tell you that my two favorites are Matt and Allison. Megan needs to seriously go in my opinion, along with Scott. Scott's a nice, talented guy, but not exactly a "pop star". What do you think?

March Pictures of Peyton

Peyton managed to get one shoe on her foot one night.


For breakfast, she fed herself yogurt.



And what is Peyton doing here you might ask? Why trying to put my underwear on of course, underwear that she found in the dirty laundry basket!

A Busy Month

This month has been so busy! I feel like I have not stopped at work and at home. This weekend my dad and brother are coming to New Orleans to visit. We are gonna do all the touristy stuff, I'm sure, but we're also going to be eating at Commander's Palace! I'm so excited about that. Food makes a pregnant woman excited, but really good food from a really expensive, nice, world famous restauraunt makes a pregnant woman REALLY excited! And there's a Beth Moore conference coming up that I'm going to, and the Strawberry Festival is coming up too! So for the next two weekends I'm booked. Then we find out what sex the little peanut is on the 9th of April. And Peyton turns a year and a half on the 11th. Wow! So much to do and so much sleep that needs to be had. What am I going to do? ;)

How Long Does It Take?

How long does it take a child to get adjusted to daylight savings? Peyton is so grumpy in the morning when we get her up at 7, but she won't go to sleep at night! She used to fall right asleep when we put her down at 8:30, now she may lay in her crib talking and kicking the rails for 30 minutes to an hour. It's been two weeks now! Got any suggestions?

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I wanted to let everyone know that I am slowly starting to feel a lot better. My ears have almost stopped popping! But now, you won't believe this, I think Peyton is getting ANOTHER cold! That poor girl has no immune system, although my mom thinks she has allergies. And meanwhile I'm wondering if our apartment is not mold infested or something! What is going on?
Meanwhile my stomach keeps getting bigger and bigger. The baby's heartbeat is good and the doc told me everything looked good. She also said that all the medication I took was fine and wouldn't cause birth defects. Whew! What a relief! April 9th we will find out the sex.
Arnold is really enjoying his job as a hospice chaplain. He enjoys getting to minister to people, pray with them, read Scripture, and share his faith when he gets an opportunity. I'm very happy for him to have such a great job. I miss getting to eat lunch with him though. I'm starting to pack lunches for him since he's on the road all day. It's challenging because he doesn't have a fridge or a microwave. Today he will be dining on beanie weanies, crackers, a tangerine, and a honey bun. :)
Is it getting warm where you live? It's in the mid 70's here and I love it!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!

One Hard Week

If you're wondering why there hasn't been a post in a long time, I will fill you in on the details. What can I say about 2009 except that it's been a hard year?! Two weeks ago I caught a cold from Peyton. I thought I was getting over it when I woke up last Thursday night with an ear infection and pain in my jaw. The next day I saw the doctor who put me on Amoxiccilin and said it looked like an ear infection in my left ear. At this point, I could hardly hear out of my ear and felt miserable. Well the weekend came, and I continued to get worse. By Sunday night, I could not sleep for the pain, and by Monday morning, I made an appointment to see Peyton's Ear, Nose, and Throat doctor. He told me to start on Mucinex, gave me a prescription for Tylenol with Codeine, and cleaned out my sinuses with a long, metal, scary tube. By that night, I was in so much pain that I couldn't sleep, and I was sobbing. The left side of my face, my gums, and teeth hurt so bad that it was just excrutiating. So the next morning, in desperation, I went to see the dentist just to make sure that it wasn't my teeth, it wasn't, then I went and saw the ENT again. This time, he gave me an antibiotic shot, a steroid shot, and a prescription for Vicodin! He wanted me to come back the next day, Wednesday. He cleaned out my sinuses again, and then by that night I was in the worst pain again. Well, this has continued all week...I've had three antibiotic shots, two steroid shots, Mucinex, Tylenol, Amoxicilin, and Vicodin! All in the span of one week. And today, since I had to go to the ob-gyn, I can say that I have been to the doctor every day this week! And even one day last week. Crazy. But I have to say a BIG THANK YOU to all my family, friends, and even strangers who have been praying for me. I believe that God is healing my body and answering prayers. It has truly been one of the hardest weeks of my life. You know you never want to take all of this medication when you have a tiny little baby inside your belly. Thank you again for prayers, and please continue to lift me and the baby up!

Spring!

I decided to change the blog template in honor of Spring, which I know is here already, right?? Please tell me it is. It is supposed to be 75 degrees in New Orleans today and through next week, so that means it's Spring already, at least to me it does. I am WAY tired of Winter, no more snowflakes, cold weather, and long sleeve shirts. Spring is here! And in 15 days it will officially be here.

Emotions

So I thought I was emotional BEFORE I was pregnant...yeah right! It's nothing compared to now. (Arnold may disagree and say it's the same, but he doesn't know. :) ) Here are some examples: Today I was watching Jeopardy over lunch, and when the girl won final Jeopardy I started tearing up. The other day while watching a Judge show during lunch, I started crying. The other week while watching Wheel of Fortune, I started tearing and choking up when the man won and his family came out to give him hugs. It's weird that it always happens when I'm watching tv, but that's the way it is. I've also bawled during a few movies, more than I normally would. Isn't this insane?? It's got to be the hormones.

Peyton's Gift to Me

Well, I got over my morning sickness only to catch Peyton's nasty cold that she gave me through sneezing on me, coughing on me, coughing on my food, and generally just having her snot all over my shirt, hands, etc. This is one terrible cold! And I've heard a lot of people say that this thing doesn't go away quickly. So really, I've done nothing but continue to stay at home on the weekends, breaks, etc. I'm not complaining about staying at home, because it is just nice to relax sometimes. But I will be extremely glad when the weather is warm and everyone in my family is well and we can go for walks outside.
In other news, Arnold really likes his new job. The bad part is that he has to travel to different people's houses. That wouldn't be so bad if he didn't first have to FIND those different houses. Direction is not Arnold's strong point. Luckily he has a GPS, but sometimes even that has gotten him lost. We are thankful though for his new opportunity to minister to people.
So how has your week been going? Have you been sick with this nasty cold too?