Whew...She Made It!!!

So I'm sure some of you keep up with me on facebook and have seen some of my posts on my dear friend Liz.  She is el preggo and has complete previa.  She actually went into the hospital a few weeks ago and almost ended up having to deliver the baby due to complications with the previa. Well, we prayed and God chose to answer...Liz was sent home and put on bed rest until she reaches 36 weeks.  At that point, her sweet baby Willa will be delivered via C-Setion on December 1st.

Now, why the title??  Well...her friends Anna, Amber and I were throwing her a baby shower and today was the day!  Whew...she made it to her shower with baby Willa still in her tummy!!!!!  Huge praise to the Lord on high people!!  Here's how the day went down...

We got to Liz's mom's to set up a bit early...we got the food out, decorated, then waited for the party to get started...here's how it looked...

mmmmmmm, who doesn't love a candy bar??

Here's the yummy cake our friend Holli made!!  Check out that board...she goes full out people!

The entire spread.....chicken pasta salad, goat cheese/pesto spread with crackers, fresh fruit, and pigs in a blanket!

Cute banner made by Amber

When Liz walked in she cried which made me cry :]  We had to get a pic with her before everyone arrived!

As mentioned above, Liz is on bed rest, so she plopped herself down in the yellow chair and we took care of her for the day!

Lots of people came to bless Willa and her parents!!

Super cute bunny slippers!!

awesome burb cloths

precious!!

The hostesses got her a Pack n Play!! She was super surprised!!

The party was a hit, and everyone had a great time!  We pray for Liz, Kevin and Willa until the day Willa arrives.  May God bless this family with an easy delivery and recovery, and a wonderful life to come centered on our maker!  Love you Liz!!!

The End!!

What'd You Do In Church Today?

Joey loves to go to church! She loves Miss Barbara who teaches her on Sundays!  She loves telling you that her classroom is the green one!  She loves that she gets to eat pretzels and cookies and that she gets to drink water out of a "big girl cup".  

So this Sunday as always, we asked we had a conversation when we picked her up from her classroom.

Mommy: Joey, did you have fun at church today?

Joey: Yes

Mommy: What'd you do?

Joey: Made crap

Mommy: Made what?

Joey: Crap {pointing to the item in the picture below}

Mommy: Oooooohhhhh, you made a craft!

Joey: Yep, a crap!!

I love misunderstandings such as these :]  So Joey also loves to make *crafts* in Sunday school :]  This one in particular is based on the song "Jesus Loves the Little Children", and I don't care what you say Joey, mommy loves it and it's NOT CRAP!!

American Honey

Well, Johnny and Joey are at gymnastics, and Sammy is sleeping, so I'll jump on the opportunity to tell you about our girls night out last night!  

Amy texted me the Wednesday night and asked if I might want to go see Lady Antabellum on Friday.....I was driving so Johnny read me the text, I screamed and it was a done deal!  She had 2 extra tickets, so we invited my sister Vicky and friend Kelli {on a side note, when I called Kelli, she screamed and giggled like she'd won the lottery...loves it!!!}!!  Let me just tell you how amazing this band is!  Below is one of my favorite songs of theirs.....take a listen then continue reading!

Did you hear that awesomeness??  Well, that's exactly what they sounded like live!!  I'm not kidding when I say that was the best live vocal performance show I've ever been to!  They did not miss a note all night, and that's no joke!  For such a young band....Hillary is only 24...they performed like seasoned vets!  I was so thrilled to get to spend the night with family and friend, and am blessed to have a hubby who would let me do it!  Here's a few pics from the night...did I mention we were on the 16th row in the center of the theatre??  Well, we were!!!!!

Good thing I had my point n shoot in my purse!!  I could not believe just how close we were!!

This truly was an amazing show, and I can't wait to see them again!! Thanks for the tickets JB, you rock!!!

Our Little Chef....

So Joey is really into cooking these days!  She's found a new interest in her play kitchen and has to make us dinner every time we go into her room!  I've been asking her if she'd like to help my cook things and her response is always "Yes!!!!  We have to get my stool mommy!!!".  Things she has helped me make so far include brownies, pizza, nacho bites, and more!  She's even helped Johnny season the steaks, and make mac n cheese! Here are a few pics of the mac n cheese...

First you pour in the noodles.....

Then you stir occasionally....

then you share a sweet moment with daddy while mommy looks on with a tear in her eye ;]

The thing I love about Joey and her cooking is that she goes full force!   Although she is a cautious child,    when you give her a measuring cup full of liquid, she just dumps it out into the bowl without even thinking about it..no slow pour, just "splat"! The other day we were making brownies and it called for 2 eggs.  I cracked one and opened it over the bowl.  Before I could do anything, Joey had picked up the other egg, smashed it on the counter and was holding it over the bowl, crackled shell and all :] It was hilarious and surprisingly no shell pieces ended up in the bowl!

Anyway, I hope that Joey continues to like helping us in the kitchen, and who know, one day she might be a famous chef?? Only time will tell :]

5 Months!!!!

So Sam is already 5 months old, and as each month goes by, Johnny and I praise God that she is still breathing :]  She's so cute and such a joy to the family!  Here's a pic...

That little tongue is out all the time, and has proven problematic during solid food feeding time!  We have been consistent and just push it down with the spoon during feeding and she is getting better! She has eaten every veggie that Gerber makes and only turned her nose up at green beans, but she finished them and by the 3rd day I think she kinda liked it!

Sam is such a good baby!  Tuesday and Thursday mornings {Joey's school days} our routine goes something like this....Johnny and I wake up to the alarm, hit snooze for anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour before actually getting out of bed :]  Once out of bed, Johnny heads to work and I get Sam going on her breakfast.  After feeding her, I lay her on the ground to play with some toys while I get her sister out of bed.  This process can take anywhere from 5 minutes to 20, and the whole time I am handling Joey, Sam just plays and plays!  When Jo isn't crying because she doesn't want to get up, I can hear Sam just talking and moving and shaking her toys around in the other room!  When we get downstairs, I get Jo's breakfast ready, get Sam ready for the day, then starts the loading of the car :]  She never cries {knock on wood}, and just lets me do what needs to get done in the morning!  Love that!!

Sam has also been smiling a ton and even giggling a bunch too!  She thinks it's funny when you make loud kissing noises while kissing her tummy, cheeks, you name it!  I love making her laugh, and tear up pretty much anytime it happens!!

Sammy loves sitting up now and often sits in her little seat!  We just set her in front of her play mat and she goes to town!

I love those little feet!!!

In the pic above, you see Sammy is sporting a bib.  This is becoming quite the trend since she is drooling a lot!  She's got some white spots on her gums and I'm expecting to see some teeth any day now!

Well folks, I think that's it for now!  Sam doesn't have another Doc appointment until December, so for her 6 month update, I'll include all her stats!

Halloween Weekend!!!

This was a great year for the Stouts and Halloween festivities....

It all started with some pumpkin carving :]

 Joey did not want to touch the insides of the pumpkin!!  She said it was gross!

 Poking holes in the pumpkin...

 Did the picture transfer??

Did it???

 It did!!!  Let's start carving!!

My turn first....we got a pumpkin carving kit this year!  I highly recommend spending the $5 to get the little saws...so much easier that anything we have ever done!  We will be buying a kit again next year for sure!!

 I got the mouth and an eye done before letting Johnny in on the action!!

Joey was poking holes in paper while daddy was hard at work!!

 Go Johnny go....he cut an eye out and both eyebrows...

 Our finished pumpkins...Joey painted hers from the pumpkin patch a few days ago!

That night we went to the EWA staff party...this was our attempt at a group shot :]

Halloween night rolled around and all the Life Group kiddos came over to go Trick or Treating!!!  We ate pizza first!

We headed to the other Stout house and danced on Aunt Lisa's stage :]

Attempt at a family shot in front of the Stout Saloon

Amanda's supposed to be off her feet, so we got her a wheel chair for the night!!  Nothing stops this lady :]

 Group shot...from the back it's the Jackie, Joey and Jacob...Kelli and bean...Madison, Hannah, Amanda and Brandon...Johnny, Sammy, Joey, and me {behind the camera :]}

Our little Tinkerbell going to the houses to get some candy :]  We rehearsed and everyone thought she was so cute when she would say trick or treat!!  

Here's Madison, Mily and Joey at the end of the night!  Still smiling, but all sleepy :]

And last but not least, another group shot minus the Barr family :[  They had to get to gettin at the end!

So Halloween is said and done, and I can't wait till next year!  Our trick or treating group is getting bigger, and with 5 new babies in our group it's only going to continue to grow!  It's so fun to see our kids grow up together and make memories with our friends!!!

Hearty....Har Har......

So sweet Joey had a heart check up on Monday.  We had been preparing her the night before since her appointment last year didn't go so well {nice way to say....she kicked and screamed and didn't behave so great}.  She knew that she was going to have to take her shirt off and the doctor was going to look at her heart.  We told her about the sonogram and how they were going to put some lotion on her chest and use a stick to see inside her chest.  She was prepared and when asked what we were going to do that day she would say "we go docker he look my heart it tickles!!!".  So we woke up and took Sammy to Holli's and were on our way!  I brought the stroller because it's a hike from the parking lot up to the doc's office on the 8th floor!!  We got there and this is the first time Joey was big enough to play in the "tree house" in the lobby :] {For those of you who don't know, we have been going to the heart doc since Joey was about 4 months old for several reasons...you can read about it here, and here, and here!}  Anyway, here's some shots of her in the tree house....forgive the quality, all I had was my iPhone!!

From the waiting room, we went to get weighed in and measured up...She's 24.8lbs, and 32 inches tall!  Then we headed into the Sono room.  I'm not sure how these people work all day and don't fall asleep.  It's dim, warm, and the hum of the Sonogram machine would lull me right to sleep...I'm actually yawning just thinking about it! 

 Here we are with the Sono tech.  What is Joey looking at?  I was smart this time and brought a Dora DVD on the off chance that the TV usually playing Baby Einstein was able to play DVDs and that it wasn't something played office wide.  The unit was self contained, so we got to watch Dora which made the Sono Tech's job so much easier!  Joey had moments of claustrophobia, but all in all she did great!  No kicking, no screaming, and not 1 single tear!!!

From there it was off to the waiting room where we waited for the Doctor to come in.  I brought some things for Joey to play with and all she wanted was my iPhone to play on.  I let her since she behaved so well during the sono!  Since Joey was playing, I decided to snap a few shots of the random decor in the room...if you missed my last post about Sammy's visit, it included other random decor that made me go "hmmmmm?"  you can check it out here.

One thing I love about our Pediatric Cardiologist is that they are Christians.  There is some sort of Christ paraphernalia in each room, and in this one it was the Armor of God!  Got it :]

Other than studying God's Word, I was also able to brush up on my geography....

....and also dream of being on a mountain top!

So the doc finally came in, and Joey was a bit leery.  She let him listen to her heart and talked a lot while the doc was trying to explain their findings from the Sonogram.  He said that her ASD has completely closed up, so that's awesome!!!  He also said that her Pulmonary Valve Stenosis is stable....not improving and not getting worse, so that's great!! Then he brought out his little notepad with a drawn heart and said there was a "new finding" this time.

Joey has a subaortic membrane.  Please click on the link to find out what it is, because when I try to explain, I get jumbled and tell people the wrong thing :].  Basically what everyone needs to know is that Joey is OK!  She is a happy healthy girl who is thriving!  The Doc did say that if the membrane grows that Joey could have to have surgery, but right now her case if VERY MILD, and he's not too worried about it!  I told Dr. Laird that we know the Lord is in control, and he knows Joey, and he made her who she is for His purpose!  We can handle anything with Him at the helm!  He agreed and said it was refreshing to not have a parent freak out when he gives them "news".  It's different when you have an eternal perspective I think!

Anywho, that's the deal.  Again, our Doc isn't worried about Jo and we don't have to go back until next year, so that's good!!  We will keep you posted if anything changes!  Thanks to those of you who stuck this one out to the end...long post, I know :]