More Christmas Pictures

My little sister Shelley and her family always host Christmas Eve at their house.

Tom her husband is a big kid at heart.

This is their Christmas decor outside their house.

Homemade lasagna for dinner. Delicious!!

Poppy Tom and Me.

Our beautiful boys. My sisters and I each have one. 

Hi my name is Meredith and I'm about to catch mono. I do smile sometimes.

I swear.

HI my name is Ari and I like to take pictures of myself. 

cousins in the bathroom with a camera.

Aunt Shelley's bathroom needs a re-model. BADLY!!

Stacy has a houseful of foreign exchange students. They are adorable!

another Christmas eve smack down

Mom and Poppy Tom

Indy composes the letter to Santa. 

still more to come.

Time For Christmas Pictures

Here are a few pics from our trip to California over the holidays.

Although I wasn't feeling well, I did manage to snap a few pics while we were there.

We went to some friends house to celebrate my Mom's birthday.

Hello my name is Meredith and I am about to catch mono.

Hi my name is Brittany and I'm a couple of days away from being old enough to drink legally. Pay no attention to that beer in my hand.

Someone gave Gramma Kitty a slutty sequined bra. I hope she wears in when she's with that certain person. And I hope that certain person is highly embarrassed.

A little Jew sprinkled in for good measure.

more to come later.

I'm Home

I did NOT plot my escape. I swear. I was discharged because I was able to be switched from IV steroids to oral steroids.

I am home now. Resting. I am a bit weak but feel OK. Only a little bit of pain in my large intestine. Last time this happened the flare up involved my entire large intestine but this time I was lucky. I got started on treatment much sooner so the flare up is only in the lower portion of my large intestine and therefore not as bad and not as painful.

I still haven't even gone through my pictures from Christmas. I will do that soon. As soon as I feel up to it.

Thank you for all of your kind words and messages.

I really do appreciate them. I am so blessed.

Stephanie

It's Been Awhile

Um yea I know...
You've missed me.
You've grown bored of looking at this pathetic picture of me lying in a hospital bed.
Me too.

Except for one thing...


I'm in the hospital again.

Yea I know right?
So annoying. This Ulcerative colitis came out of it's deep slumber in November and has tortured me for two months. I've tried to ignore it but I won't go away.

So I've been tossed in here by my GI doctor to get this beast under control.

Just had  CT scan on my abdomen so they can have a looksee and see if there is anything going on in there that looks bad. I'm hoping NOT.

Keep y'all posted.

Me

The Beast is Back

Remember last year when I was here?

Ulcerative colitis landed me a week long stay in the hospital.

This year...

IT'S BACK!!

Damn it!!

I am determined to keep myself OUT of the hospital.

Today I started the 7 week course of truck loads of steroids.

Ya know I want to live when I'm begging my Doctor for steroids!

Don't want to be sick, don't want to be sick.

Another One For My Girl

Opened the paper today and saw this...

Totally forgot to mention that not ONLY did Ari get the coaches award but she was also picked

for the "all county" team. This team is comprised of 16 girls from the entire county and FOUR of them were from our team. That's HUGE!!

Ari's team was also given the "all county" award for "sportsmanship".

We are raising some pretty damn good kids down here  in the Deep South.

Yep that's me bragging on my girl.

Sorry... can't help it.

My Girl

My girl finished her volleyball season a month ago. We just had their end of season banquet. The banquet is a nice way to finish off the season and give out some accolades and awards to some of the players.

We had a nice "Southern style" dinner followed by an awesome slide show put together by tours truly, another VB mom and one of our videographer dads.

After the show the coaches got up and said a little something about each girl and then gave her a certificate and her Varsity letter and gold bar. I wish my girl wanted a Letterman's jacket. When I was in high school all the athletes wore their Letterman's jackets adorned with all of their accomplishments.

The coaches said a little something nice and sweet about each Varsity player and then gave out several awards for stats. Ari didn't top the list of highest stats but she had a great season and played better than she ever has.

The final awards were the "Coaches Awards". The coach started out by saying the the two players who were receiving these awards were the 2 players that have a stellar work ethic, always show up with a "can do" attitude and have the MOST positive attitude. They have leadership skills that motivate the team and have NEVER EVER complained. She went on to say that these awards were the most important awards in her mind because they were given out to a person of good character and work ethic. The whole time the coach was talking about these two girls I was thinking... " God I wish she was talking about Ari." I just wanted someone to speak about my child the way she went on to talk about the recipients of this award.

It turns out she was...

My beautiful baby girl was one of the recipients of this award. I burst into tears. I was so proud. I only wished I had video taped the coaches speech about these two girls because you would cry too.

I don't want to make it about me or Ted but It's so gratifying for someone to acknowledge that the way you parent your kids is actually WORKING!!

I have never been so proud of my girl.

Little miss thing can't get close enough to her big sis.

Couldn't keep her away for the awards table either.

Ari's broken thumb is healing up nicely.

Ashlyn was the other recipient of the Coaches award.

Yep... that's my girl.

the two bronze plates on the table are the coach's awards. They are very cool.

Congrats Arianna on your "Coaches Award" !!

We love you and are so incredibly proud!