Children's Museum

Sierra being a dog.

Where's Paige?

Sierra's on a Dig.

In Winston Salem we have a great Children's Museum. We made a trip there while Claire and company were here.

Christmas 2009

I am delinquent in posting about our fun Christmas. We almost had everyone home and were sad Jill couldn't join us. We so enjoyed our time with Joseph, Katie and Claire. In December I asked the family to send me their wish lists for me to compile and send back out to everyone. On Daniel's list he wanted snow and to go skiing while JW and family were here. It started snowing on Friday afternoon before Rick was to go to Raleigh to pick up our BYU crew. Their plane was late and the drive home that normally took 1 hr and 15 took 2 1/2. They made it safely. Daniel was so excited that Joseph and Katie brought the snow (they had his name this year). Joseph played outside throwing snowballs, sledding and cleaning off the neighbor's driveway. After Christmas the kids all went skiing (except Katie, who was under the weather). I saw a paper Daniel wrote after Christmas for school and he said it was the "BEST DAY EVER". I regrettably didn't have anyone take a picture of all of us. I got a new Camera for Christmas so I can take pictures again. Thanks L & J! Daniel and I also each got bikes. He has been anxious for us to go on a big ride, but I can't make it up the hill going around the block. It will take some time and the weather isn't cooperating. Some of our Christmas activities: FREEZING ride through the Festival Lights, Christmas at Grandmama and Deda's with the Smith's, the kids had a sibling game night, the married kids went to Grandmama and Deda's for dinner, the kids went skiing, breakfast with the Brewer side of the family, and a trip to the Children's Museum. I cooked a lot and we all ate a lot and just had a grand time. My favorite part was watching all the grandkids playing together. The Bells loved playing with Claire.

More pictures

Laura Pictures

Our first family picture

Laura loves her Daddy!
I was clueless didn't think to provide her with real dress up clothes.

"My Baby Laura"

My life lately is "a day late and a dollar short" as someone used to say. I have to end my year of blogs by telling "Laura's story". Her birthday was December 1, so better late than never, right?

Because Rick was OLDER when we got married, we immediately wanted to have a baby. It seemed to take forever....we were married 2 1/2 years when Laura was born and I was almost 21! Yea, forever is relative when you are young and clueless! We were so excited.

We had decided to wait to buy most things until after my baby shower. Laura wasn't due until December 14th and my shower was scheduled for the 5th. Plenty of time. We had been at Mom's for Thanksgiving I believe and I had just gotten a perm. I don't think you are supposed to do that in your last month...but again, I was clueless. I have quite the frizzy curly hair in hospital pictures. (not seen here). I started having contractions at 1:00 am or so Monday morning, we went to the hospital around 5 I think and I was dilated to 8 about 10 am when I was begging for an epidural. Laura was posterior or sunny side (she was coming out face up instead of face down) so they needed to turn her. Thank goodness I had the medicine first! What I do no now that I didn't know then, if I would have waited 10 minutes for the medicine, she probably would have popped out! Maybe not since she was sunny side. Laura was born around 1:00pm, which wasn't bad for a first delivery. Laura was 8lbs and 12 oz.

About the time Laura was born I had several friends who had lost babies and I was a little petrified. I used to go in and put my finger next to her nose so I could feel her breathing. I struggled with the whole nursing thing because my Mom didn't nurse any of us. At 2 weeks Laura weighed 6 lbs and something! My milk had never really come in and Laura had been born with a lot of fluid and she slept a lot. It took about a month longer to get my milk to come in and get her back where she needed to be. It was scary! I don't think there were the great books out that there is now that would have helped me.

Laura survived despite her parents! She had several close calls as a young child that we were blessed to have positive outcomes: high fevers, car door that flung open while riding down the highway, tasting oil, stitches and then several others when she was a teenager. Laura has been a spiritual giant most of her life. She has taught her parents many life lessons and character building experiences.

We had some rocky years while Laura was a teenager and it didn't help that when Laura was between 16 and 17 that I was pregnant with Daniel. Too many hormones in the same house. I do believe that while I was pregnant, though, I was given an extra sensitivity to the Spirit and had many promptings that made a difference. We survived those rocky years and I am blessed with a wonderful daughter and a wonderful friend. Laura amazes me everyday with her incite, spirituality, and grace. She is a great wife and mother and a beautiful daughter of God.

I love you Laura and feel so blessed that the Lord sent you to our home.