Emma is 2 1/2 months old!!! Gone by so fast!

It has been so long since I have posted anything! Hmmm...new things in our life? Well, Emma is growing so fast. We went to her 2 month appointment at Dr. Landry's for her first set of shots. She screamed so hard they had to slap her back so she would take a breath in. Broke my heart in a million pieces....and of course, her Daddy was working and got to skip the event. After it was over, she did great and they seemed to not bother her at all. They weren't very impressed with her weight of 8 lb 8 oz at 8 weeks so they told me to start adding calories to every feeding. We have been doing that and boy, has she gained! We went in today and she was up to 9 lb 8 oz. One pound in less than 2 weeks. Not bad! We went to the doctor because even though her pooping situation has improved to 1 diaper every 2 days, her reflux has gotten increasingly worse. She has started projectile vomitting after her feedings and only eating 1-2 ounces every 3-4 hours. I was impressed and couldn't stand to watch her cry and throw up any longer. The doctor got us in this morning and they have changed her medication to 2 new meds and also have scheduled her for an appt with a GI specialist at a later date! I just want her to feel better and I will do anything to get that! I'll keep you posted on how she does. Besides the health issues?? Emma is smiling a lot now and makes me that happiest person in the world when she smiles at us. She is still in newborn clothes even though some are getting a little tight. She is sleeping about 6-7 hours at night and then goes right back to sleep after a bottle for another 3 hours. She loves to lay on a pallet in the floor and watch football on TV and talk to the TV....so cute. She hates the hiccups, which happen frequently. She is most definitely a daddy's girl and it melts my heart to see them together. Our lives have been so blessed by this little girl...we just had no idea how much happiness she would bring to us!

Mark is enjoying the fire department and got his first real fire on Saturday, which was only a pile of carpet set on fire and a couple dumpsters on fire. Not anything huge but a fireman will take any fire, any day, over a medical call! It's in their blood! Mark got sick with "flu-ish" symptoms for a few days but is better now.

I have gone back to work full time now and even though I hate leaving her, I know she is being taken care of. Her daddy is home with her most of the time but 7 days a month, she goes to either our friend, Tiffani's or our friend, Karen's. They both live close by and she has done great at both! Work is good for me but hectic at times. As admission coordinator I get all of the admissions so I get my hands-on patient care as well as lots of office time. It's a good medium for me.

Mark's Gran is in the hospital right now and is still waiting to find out why her Sodium is so low. We are praying hard for her to get better and gain some strength back. We need to go see her so soon! She hasn't even been able to meet our sweet Emma yet.

Off to bed...I think I've highlighted to major things. No, actually, I'm sure I've missed something but I'll add it later.

I'm posting pics from recently. The naked ones are from the doctor today and the most recent. Look at that double chin!

Incredible people

Today I have had several things that have truly amazed me and touched my heart. Since I'm laying in the recliner sick with aches, fever, and swine flu, I've been able to catch up on my shows that I DVR. There has gotten to be alot saved on there because of us not having the time to watch as many as we record.

I started out with all my Oprah's. I don't watch them all but I record them and then go through and watch the ones that sound interesting or appealling to me. I watched them all in time to watch today's show. WOW! Anyone else watch these incredible stories? My heart was truly touched by these families who have overcome GREAT obstacles. From taking in your parents 9 severely disabled children after your parents were gunned down and killed, to nearly dying in a plane crash and almost burning to death but surviving, to sitting in the wrong seat on the plane and the man next to you adopting you a few months later. I watched and listened to all of their stories and it makes me want to be a better person. I am put in situations every day, some that I don't even realize, where I could help people. Sometimes I feel sorry for myself about having to work or being in a lease that prevents us from buying a house for a few more months or not having enough money to do it all or not having enough time to get everything done that I need to do or not getting as much sleep as I would like to get some nights. AND THEN I HAVE A DAY LIKE TODAY.

I look at the 27 year old girl and her husband of 2 years on Oprah, whose parents home was broken into and they were shot multiple times and killed in front of their adopted children. She and her husband step up to the challenge and raise all 9 of these children, some with down syndrome, some with autism, ADHD, behavioral problems, etc. There are medications that are liquids, patches, capsules to open over food and eat. A 4 year old with a feeding tube that needs to be fed every 3 hours around the clock through it. Her parents will was void due to it not being witnessed correctly, there was no life insurance policies, they recieved $1100 in donations after the incident. They both work full time outside the home but have 2 mortgages, 2 utility bills, etc because they can't sell the home they were living in prior to this happening. They said the electricity bill for the house they are living in with the children, which is her parents home, was $1285 last month! That is more than a lot of my friends mortgages.

I listened to the story of the husband and wife of 9 years, with 4 children, who were on a small plane that crashed and exploded. He had a broken back and 30% of his body was burned. He helped save his wifes life by getting her out of the plane...with a broken back. She had over 80% of her body burned and laid 3 months in a coma and a year later, looks completely different. She said she had a vision and there was someone there with her that told her she could continue to live but it would be a hard life, or she could transition and move on. She chose the hard way and said it was the easiest choice of her life because she had a husband and 4 children waiting for her to get better. With her face so scarred that it doesn't look like the same person, her husband looks at her with so much love and pride. He is so happy to have her here with him. Her children beg her to pick them up, which she can't do because of her skin still healing. It takes her 2 hours to take a shower and do all of the painful scrubing, applying ointments, etc that she has to do every single day. It takes her 3 times as long to prepare her kids lunch trying to open ziploc bags and cut up apples. And yet, she does it with a smile and in the most loving manner imaginable.

And then the 15 year old girl who was on her way to a shelter for foster kids in Tennessee where she was going to live after bouncing from one foster home to the next. She sat in the wrong seat on the plane next to a chatter box and at a time when she didn't want to talk to anyone. He asked her what she was doing and she told him. He said, "What would you like to happen?" She said, "I'd like a family someday." He went home, told his wife, and began searching for her with only her first name. He found her and year later, after being emptynesters, they adopted her as their own. She got her family from sitting in the wrong seat on the plane.

After I watched the show and cried the whole time through, I decided I'd better go get my medicine from the pharmacy that they owed me from yesterday. I sat in the drive thru for about 10 minutes, which seemed like an eternity. In my head, I was saying "Don't they know people are sick and don't want to be waiting. Really? How could it take this long?", etc. I got to the window, they sent my prescription out and I said, "What do I owe for it?" They said, "No ma'am. The lady in front of you said to keep her credit card number on file and to pay for the person's behind her prescription no matter the cost." I couldn't believe it. It must have been her random act of kindness for the day and what a nice one for me!

So today I commit to being a better person. I often have heard people comment "There just aren't any good people out there anymore!" What a false statement. There are incredible people all over the place. Seek them out, pay attention, surround yourself with them, be one of them!

Best year of my life!

One down, many more to go! Today, Mark and I have been married 1 year. Yes, only 1 year. We had planned on waiting 3 years to have children and, well, we waited 3 months. Nevertheless, we have a beautiful baby girl and wouldn't do a thing different.

Last night, my best friend, Brianna (Onny) kept Emma for us and Mark and I went and had dinner at Texas Land & Cattle. One of our first dates was on the Riverwalk on Valentine's Day and that is where we ate. After dinner, we went to the movies and saw Love Happens (which I highly recommend). It was a really nice evening to get out of the house and get to have a night with just the two of us to celebrate!

Today I sat in church and reflected on the last year with Mark. We have done so many things in that short time. We started our marriage by coming home from our honeymoon and got extremely sick for 2 weeks with a Mexico stomach bug and let me just tell you how romantic that was to experience together. :) Three months after our wedding, we learned we were pregnant. Two months after that, I moved to Lubbock to begin working to start saving PTO for maternity leave. Mark completed the hiring process with Lubbock Fire Dept and in fact, is on his first shift right now for the City of Lubbock. SO, in a short year, we got pregnant, both changed jobs, moved cities, lived in 3 different houses, and had a beautiful daughter.

Here are just a few reasons that I fell in love with Mark and reasons why I love him more and more each day!...
- He loves God, his family, his friends.
- He is almost always happy!
- He would give anyone the shirt off his back.
- When there is something he doesn't really want to do but he knows it is something important to me, he does it without ever complaining!
- He looks at me and just smiles and says, "You're so pretty!"
- When he does something to make me mad, he just lets me fume for awhile and then says something really funny and I've calmed down by then and can just laugh.
- He is the BEST daddy to Emma Grace!
- He loves my family just as I do.
- His family has taken me in as their own!
- He is affectionate in public and at home!
- He kisses me every night and every single morning!
- He fills my car up with gas because he knows it's my least favorite thing to do.
- He randomly gets me flowers, sometimes for no reason at all!
And finally
- He is Mark Darrel, and there is NOTHING I don't love about him! He is a great husband, my husband. When I picture our next year and another 20 after that, I picture him by my side through every good moment and every bad one as well.

I looked up our wedding vows that we personally wrote to each other on our wedding day and I read them and cried tears of joy. I believe these to be true now even more than the day we said them to each other! I will share...
Mark's vows to me:
"I Mark, take you, Kara Marie, to be my wife, my other half. I promise to be your best friend. To always be there for you, through all the laughter and happiness, as well as the hard times. I promise to always support, encourage, and push you to attain your goals and dreams. I promise to do everything I can to make you happy, even if that means buying you a new pair of shoes every now and then. I promise to listen to you even when you might think I am incapable of doing so at times. And when the time comes, I promise to be the best father that I can be and to always do everything in my power to better our family. I promise that the first and last thing I do each day is hold and kiss you. I pledge to always be faithful, and to never leave your side. I've never met anyone like you Kara. You have all the qualities I've ever wanted in someone. I love you, and I vow to never stop loving you for the rest of my life."
My vows to Mark:
" I, Kara, choose you Mark as my best friend, my love for life. I promise you my deepest love, my fullest devotion, my tenderest care, through the pressures of the present and the uncertainties of the future. I promise to be faithful to you. I promise to love you, to commit to you, to support you. I pledge to respect your unique talents and abilities, to lend you strength for all your dreams. You have shown me what love feels like and for that I thank you. You are everything I need and at this moment I know all of my prayers have been answered and all my dreams have come true. I praise God for you Mark. For all your love and constant friendship. I know that our love is heaven sent and I promise to be here forever and always. From this day forward, you shall not walk alone. My heart will be your shelter and my arms will be your home. As I have given you my hand to hold, I give you my heart to keep."

I LOVE YOU MARK D!!!!!!!

Six sweet weeks

Today Emma is 6 weeks old! I just cannot even believe it has been that long. She is changing every single day and we are having so much fun watching her change and seeing how her personality is developing. She is sweet like her daddy and stubborn like her momma! :) She talks to us by cooing, she grunts and only cries when she is hungry, and she is especially dramatic when her daddy is around. If she isn't being held, she loves to be propped up in her boppy. She does NOT like her swing or bouncer yet but we try it every few days to see if she might change her mind. I remind you, she is stubborn. She's a messy eater and after many grueling tests, we have learned that her lack of pooping may just be normal for her. I never knew going days and days without pooping for a newborn could be normal but they don't seem to find anything wrong after her colonoscopy and abdominal xray. The barium swallow did show reflux which we are treating with medicine twice a day. She misses her MeMe and Pops and loves for her Grandma and Grandpa to sing to her. She eats about 3 ounces every 3 hours except during the night, she wakes up every 4 to 5 hours to eat, which is a blessing. Bella is getting attached to her and is quiet protective of her. Emma holds her head up for 30-40 seconds and looks around...yes, at 6 weeks. She pushes with her legs while on her back and can

scoot a lot of places and scoot out of her carseat if she isn't buckled in. Did I mention she is stubborn and if she wants out, she gets herself out?? LOL! She IS her mother's daughter I say! She has smiled once at her daddy but hasn't anymore and we are waiting to get that big, gummy smile. We are having a blast with her and just can't seem to get enough of her! Everything she does is precious and every day she does something new. We love you, Emma Grace!

Centennial Class

These aren't the best pictures because my camera was acting up but we gave it a shot! Friday, September 25th, was Mark's graduation from the Lubbock Fire Department's recruit academy. It was a 5 week "crash" course to prepare them to go on shift for LFD. There was 27 recruits, 26 men and 1 woman. Mark will be stationed at Station 6, which is on 35th & Indiana, and is on C shift. There will be lots of changes for him and myself from the way things were done in Kerrville. For example, the shifts here are from 6pm to 6pm, where in Kerrville they were 8am to 8am. This graduating class is named the Centennial class because LFD is celebrating 100 years of service this year. As Mark walked in in line, following the bagpipe and bass drum playing, my heart swelled with pride. I am so proud of Mark for everything he has accomplished and for choosing a career where he can serve and help people. A common theme spoken in everyone's speech at graduation was God and how important it is to keep Him center of your life. At the end, I was honored to go on stage and pin Mark's badge on him. I pray that as he begins his journey here, he and our family will be blessed. We do not know what life brings us, but I pray for thankfulness in good times, perserverence in bad times, and faithfulness in both!

Showered with love & blessings

On Sunday, September 20th, the ladies from church in Clovis, once again blessed our lives! They had a baby shower for sweet Emma and I was blown away with everyone's support...not suprised, but grateful! I wasn't suprised at the support because my entire life this group of people have been there for me, during the best and worst times. We were given so many wonderful gifts, from clothes that will last us the first year if not longer, to lots of daiper, to a pack n' play to keep at my Mom and Dad's house, to the movement monitor I've been wanting to get since we brought her home. I have so many to thank and I will be spending this week finishing those thank you notes to mail off. However, a few to mention...Julie for hosting this shower in her beautiful home and doing so much on such short notice. All the ladies who made and prepared food for the occasion. To Aleta for the AMAZING cake that not only looked great but tasted wonderful as well. In fact, I've been inspired to attempt to take up fondant cake decorating. We'll see! To everyone who came and showered us with love. I am so incredibly lucky to have all of you and I cannot wait for Emma to grow up to know you all! She'll never know any better people! Thank you!

The end of a bad day...

It is 1:40 AM and I can't seem to clear my mind enough to go to bed. Emma has had 3 really bad nights, tonight included, and I just laid her down to sleep after 4 solid hours of screaming and crying. She acts like she's starved half to death but she is eating 3 ounces every hour at times right now just to keep her satisfied. She won't eat more than 3 ounces at a feeding but in an hour, she is rooting, sucking on anything she can get in her mouth, and crying her "hungry cry". She just doesn't seem comfortable lately. So, I am going to sit down and catch up on my blog because in a short 40 minutes, I'm sure she will be screaming again. No sense in going to bed for 30 minutes of sleep. I'm afraid Mark is going to have to pull some all nighters with her this weekend so I can sleep for a few hours straight. During the week, he sleeps all night because he works all day. On the weekends, he takes one feeding and I take one. This weekend, he might have to take them both so I can get some sort of rest.

With all the exhaustion, the events of today did not help my mind to rest any...nor my heart! Right after lunch, I got a text from Mom saying that she had taken Winnie (our boxer) to the vet and they had put her down. In July, the vet diagnosed Winnie with lymphoma but said until she was in pain or having a hard time, she was okay. Winnie wasn't just ANY dog. She was one of my best friends. In fact, I have a picture frame that says Best Buddies and the picture is of me sitting in the floor with her laying next to me with her paw on my leg and her looking me in the eye. That picture isn't special just because it's of us but more so because of the timing of when it was taken. It was taken during a hard time in my life and my families life. As a senior in high school, I was diagnosed with a neuromuscular disorder called Myasthenia Gravis. I wanted a dog so bad and so my parents suprised me one day with a boxer puppy...Winnie! My brother named her after Winchester rifles (I know, I know!) and she started her life with us. In our family, a dog is a member of the family just as everyone else. We have always had a dog and they always had the best life we could give them. Sometimes better than we ourselves had...;) So, there I was, with a dog I loved but also very sick. I had a serious surgery that was risky and came home much more sick than I ever had been. That summer after my senior year, it was touch and go and there were times when I couldn't do much for myself. I couldn't purse my lips around a straw or even a fork, couldn't raise my hands to wash my hair, couldn't even stand out of a car on some days. I endured lots of medications and treatment and was determined to not let this disease stop or hinder my life plans. As hard as that time was, I had a special friend with me through it all. Of course, my parents were by my side through everything and I couldn't have survived without their help and love but I had a friend who never left my side. That was Winnie. She was my buddy. She would just lay with me or put her front paws up on the couch where I was sitting and put her head behind my back and just be there touching me...telling me she wished I would get better. I went off to college and every time I came home, she was there, wagging her tail, jumping up and down, so excited to see me. During the time when I was sick, Winnie also made another close friend....my Dad. We have often said that Dad wouldn't had made it watching me be so sick and helpless had he not had Winnie to detour his energy to. They would spend hours in the backyard and if you listened, you would often hear him talking to her, just as if she was a human. Later in her life, Dad started taking her to McDonalds every Saturday morning and he would order a sausage biscuit with 2 patties....one for him and well, one for Winnie! She loved Mom too and although Mom used to say Winnie wouldn't let her love on her, there have been many times I've seen Winnie sit right next to Mom's recliner so Mom could pet her soft head and tell her how pretty she was. So now, Winnie is no longer here, no longer sufferring. And though that should give me peace, I can't be comforted just yet. I wish I had been there to tell her bye, to tell her how she made a extremely hard period in my life bearable, to tell her I simply love her! I sit here in tears and wonder if she knew how much she meant to us. Did we show her enough? It seems so funny to have all of these feeling about a dog! It's a dog that can't speak words out of their mouth but can love us unconditionally. I work around death every day in my job but nothing makes this any easier. She will be missed dearly and I will go home Sunday for the first time without my Winnie Moo being there to greet me at the door with her tail wagging, licking me to death, wiggling out of her skin...and I will be sad! Very sad!

As if I hadn't cried enough and been sad enough, poor Mom called again with more bad news. My granddads daughter, my step aunt, was found dead today in her home in Dallas. The cause is unclear and an autopsy is being performed now but regardless of the cause, it is sad and our hearts hurt. She had had a hard life but she was loved in the midst. My granddad is sad and that makes it that much harder. He is tearful and upset understandably. What do you say to comfort a parent on the loss of their child? As a parent now, I clearly ache for him knowing I would lay down and die if I lost Emma! Tomorrow we will know more after the autopsy results are in but I'm not sure it will give any ease to any of us. I pray my granddad can get some sleep tonight and Nana can stay calm enough to not get so frazzled until she can't breath, think, or function. I pray Debra is no longer hurting whether it be physically, mentally, or emotionally. We remember the good times we had!

And so there it is! We went to church tonight and I just sat and cried. I'm emotional enough being post-prego and I wouldn't have thought Winnie dying would have affected me so, but it devastated me and to top it off with Debra made it all so much worse. Hopefully tomorrow will be better...and every day after that will be easier as we miss the two we lost.

Kara

P.S. Good timing...Emma is screaming as we speak. A long night, this will be!

At the top is a picture of Winnie and Cash (our sweet boxer we lost a few years ago!)...Winnie is the one in the back!