April Showers bring May Flowers

But I like April Flowers too!

I wanted to post about Stella's showers, one in late March and the second in April. Our flower is due May 7th but I am beyond A-OK if she decides to be an April baby instead. After all diamonds ARE a girls best friend and the birthstone of April. The only tricky part would be WHO she ended up sharing a birthday with! Both Rob and I were incredibly close to our grandmothers who have since passed away and they both had April birthdays. My DAD's birthday is also at the end of April but I don't think he would mind sharing his birthday with a very special little girl.

Back to the "April Showers"

My first shower for Stella was planned for March 20th. Some of my good friends were hosting it together and we all have crazy schedules and this was the one day that worked for everyone. So of course lovely Oklahoma had to have a BLIZZARD. Yes at the end of March. I know that might be the norm for northern states but on Friday of that weekend it was 70 degrees and sunny. Saturday morning we woke up to blowing snow, terrible roads and ice everywhere.

Needless to say it was a BIT stressful when my phone started blowing up with all the people telling me they couldn't make it because of the roads. But alas we decided to keep the shower on because there just wasn't another date that would work for us all. And it ended up going perfectly! My friends and family are so wonderful and we are so blessed to be surrounded by them. Stella Katherine or SK as I like to call her, has so many strong, smart, funny, women of God in her life to look up to as role models and that makes my heart sing.

The gorgeous sign that says Stella Kate over the fireplace. My amazingly talented friend Elizabeth made it, she was one of the hostesses but her and her hubs were out of the country because they are awesome travelers like that!

The beautiful food table. My sweet friend Summer made that cake and it was SO good. Coconut cake! We also had bruschetta, spinach artichoke dip, baguette, fettucini alfredo, mini cupcakes, fruit kabobs and this awesome spinach and fruit salad that my sweet momma makes with balsamic dressing. It's one of my favorites and I ate two plates of it. LOL!

Me and my gorgeous momma. I love her and she is going to be an amazing Nana to Stella. My grandmother and I were very close and sadly she passed away after a fight with cancer when I was in 6th grade. There is an incredible bond and love that exists between my Grandma Marcie, my Mom and me even though she is gone. I cannot wait to share that with Stella.

 
 
 
 


This is my precious sister in law. Auntie D or D as Max calls her. I am super proud of who she is becoming in Christ and love her like a true sister.

Rob's Mom and Sister. Grammy Pooh and D as the kiddos call them.

My stepmom Julia. She is always a rock of faith and I love her dearly. Grandma JuJu is her given name from Max and I know Stella will love her just as much as he does.

My nearest and dearest, this is my best friend Savanah. We have been blessed to be friends 15 years this year!! Savanah was incredibly instrumental in helping me become the woman I am in God and I STILL to this day call her first when I need advice or I hit crisis mode. No one else shows such care for me and unconditional open love. I adore her!

Again with my crazy talented friend Elizabeth. She made this for SK's room and I LOVE it! Isn't she amazing!

These are my gorgeous friends who hosted the shower for me. Amazingly I met all these lovely ladies in college and we are sorority sisters. But I am so thankful we are more than that and our friendship has continued and developed past those silly college days. Kera Don, Summer (aka Catherine Summer being the confirmation for SK's middle name to be Katherine) and Kalee. I love these gals!

My bestest military mommy friend. We understand eachother in a way that most people will never understand! I am so thrilled that her husband will be home soon but I am dreadfully sad about them moving. Dang Army!

These hilarious ladies are my friend Codie who I refer to as my twin and her momma Kim. They filled the shower with laughter. I love them!

I think it's funny that I am red faced and sweaty at this lovely shower. In the middle of a blizzard! What can I do but blame it on the pregnancy hormones?!

Then just this past weekend we had another shower at the dance studio that I work at/teach at. My boss's wife is having their 3rd and much prayed for child and so the moms at dance threw us a small joint shower. It was super cute and all our dance kiddos and parents blessed us with many gifts, gift cards and clothes for the new babies. We cannot wait to meet baby Dominic and it's been really fun to commiserate with Katrina on the woes of motherhood and pregnancy. She is incredibly wise but also super sweet and I loved getting to celebrate with her.

So those are the April Showers, May flowers are great and all but I'm perfectly open to SK showing up early and claiming a diamond as her birthstone. I'm just sayin!

Always,
Jesi

Shots are no fun

Note: This is a very old picture of Max but I think it is hilarious. His face did look somewhat like this after this mornings shots.

Soooooooo, tis the season for RSV. And it stinks. Two weeks ago our little buddy got a really bad cough when were in Texas visiting the fam. As it worsened, and got more mucousy and yucky sounding, even causing Max to gag and cry we knew it was time to visit our favorite, P.A. (Physicians Assistant) Angela Bartlow to see what was up. That night, when Rob brought Max to me in the middle of the night, he was ON FIRE. One full tylenol dosage later his fever was low but I asked Rob to take him anyways. And yes, he had RSV.

Needless to say, Rob didn't so much enjoy that week home with a cranky Max on nebulizer treatments every 4 hours (he hated them at first but now he does ok as long as he gets to put the "fish face" mask on himself) and two antibiotics plus endless doses of my favorites two little bottles ever (motrin and tylenol, thank you Jesus!)

Back to the doctor we went today, for two reasons. One-to check up on his RSV and see if we could stop the fish face treatments. And Two-Max has had two skin reactions this week and we are trying to determine what is causing them.

So off we go, Max marching into the office like a big boy, until he catches the face of our nurse, you know the one who jabs needles into his chunky thighs, and he started crying. Ugh, this age of understanding what is happening can really throw a kink in your plans.

One and half hours later we determined we are RSV and fish face clear, YAY. We found out Max is right on track in all areas, except his verbal skills, where he is AHEAD of the curve for a boy his age. Guess that year of me having no one to talk to except my child is paying off. We got two shots, including MMR. Angela reassurred me that it really is safe and since Max shows no signs of autism or social/verbal lags that he will be just fine.

We STILL have a lagging ear infection in his right ear though. And since he has had SIX ear infections in his life we are on a narrowing road to a place called TUBES. Double Ugh. I really wanted to prevent tubes so we are first going to endure what I like to call my idea of personal torture, an allergy test.

Max has always had sensitive skin, almost excema like patches of dry skin on his legs and arms. We cannot use cheap baby lotion or wash, no good ol J&J, or even Aveeno works anymore. We tried Baby Arbonne and in fact it might be causing his reaction. Fan-frekin-tastic. I love when HY-PO-ALL-ER-GENIC doesn't really mean much. It might be our new (and cheap) detergent or fabric softener (don't normally use it but my awesomely helpful husband did all 142 loads of our laundry and he is a fabric softener freakazoid)

SO on the 26th, we head in for 21 sticks to see what might be causing his allergic reactions, which in turn may be causing the constant congestion, runny nose, mucous, which of course may be causing the drainage, that may be leading to those awesomely antibiotic resistant ear infections.

Send up some prayers for my little boy. Hopefully the allergy testing will determine a controllable factor and we can avoid the road called TUBES.

On two happier notes, if you want to see a super cutey named Olivia you can check out my friend Julie's blog at http://loveourliv.blogspot.com AND my friend Kera Don is almost a Mommy! At 32 weeks we have her baby shower this weekend and I am super excited for her to join this crazy club called motherhood.

Much Love,
Jesi

Max's Birthday Party

I feel so out of touch having not blogged in several days...truth be told, I haven't even gotten to read many of my favorite blogs this week and that is blasphemy to me!

But I knew October was going to be a killer, from the Breast Cancer Walk, my BF's baby shower, Rob coming home, Max's Birthday and Party, the Beautiful Womens conference at Victory Church, UCO Homecoming, Pancake Palooza Breakfast and Founders Day, and the Taste of Western my head is spinning, spinning, and spinning some more.

So once the chaos calms a bit I will post pictures from Max's Birthday party. Till then, Happy Chaotic Wednesday!
Always,
Jesi

BABES Update

So last week I lost .8 pounds....now I have lost over 10 pounds since August 14th...slow but steady wins the race.

The past two weeks have been tough. I have been craving crap food and easy drivethroughs but I have been battling it one day at a time. On Monday I DID NOT want to go to my BABES meeting because its that "time of the month" and I just knew I had gained.

I am so glad that I made myself go. It was just the kick in the pants that I needed. Barb loves on us so much and it is awesome. I really connected with two of my group members and our goal is to break the 10 pound mark together on Monday ( my Babes start weight is 4 pounds lower than when I started counting calories on 08.14) I have to believe that I can do it!

And I can, hence me drinking my coffee with skim milk and splenda this morning.

Anywhoo, every week Barb gives out a Sassy Award because she is the epitome of a girly girl. She called a girl up front who I had noticed from the beginning. This girl is pretty heavy and she really struggled with the simple exercise we do as a group. I purposefully met her eyes and smiled at her. I never want someone to feel unworthy because of their weight, havent we all felt that way as women?

So Monday she got the sassy award. Barb called her up front and she didn't even want to speak. And then when she started speaking she immediately started crying. My heart was breaking for her, and heck I am in the same boat! She told us that her dad told her her entire life that she would always be overweight. She has tried every diet out there and never lasted more than a month. She kept filling her dad in on BABES and he just kept telling her that she would fail, she wouldn't lose the weight. Yall in six weeks she has lost 28 pounds! 28 pounds!!! And she still weighs over 300 pounds. Finally after seeing her be successful at something her dad said that if she got down to 299 he would give her $1000 cash.

I KNOW that she can do it. She weighs on my heart this week. Pray for her. She is beautiful (and not just such a pretty face dangit) and I hate the hold that Satan has on her entire life because she struggles with her weight. I hate it.

So please pray for my Babes friends this week. Three of us are going to break the 10 pound mark together and this sweet girl will break 300 for the first time in YEARS. Pray for her heart to be mended with Jesus' love for her, without condition, I want her to know how loved she is, no matter what she weighs.

Always,


If you are in the OKC metro and you struggle with weight it is not too late to join this BABES session. We meet Mondays from 5:30-7:30PM. Email me at jesidz@yahoo.com if you want more info.

Girlfriends

Ohhhhhh how I love my girlfriends. I love them almost as much as the crisp fall air that is finally coming my way. Ok, really I love them more than that.

I am a girlfriend type of girl. I always listened to other girls talk about how they got along better with boys and they hated girls. Really? Not me, I will take a pretty smelling, nice talking, encouraging, girlfriend over a smelly boy any day.

In middle school, I had a close knit group of girlfriends. I marvel at how we stayed friends when we were so mean to each other at times! And we made each other pass out and call boys that we didn’t even like that much. And I took some of them to high school with me.

In high school I had a pretty large group of girlfriends. And varied we were, by the end of our four years we had taken pretty different paths. We were growing apart but we loved each other nonetheless. In fact we loved each other enough to do a yearbook page together, now that is love.

In college, I took some of those same girlfriends with me. I pledged Delta Zeta with one of my best friends and then convinced my bestie amongst all besties that she had to do it too. She did. And I can’t imagine my college years without her. Sadly, most, but not all of those high school friendships melted and cooled as new bonds of sisterhood were born in dirty houses and late night terrorizing trips to the fraternity houses. We laughed, we loved, we cried, we fought, we screamed at each other and we always made up with tearful hugs at turtle talks. (Don’t ask)

I loved those girls that surrounded me those four years. And I still love them. More than the cool crisp autumn air that blows around me. They are a life blood that keeps me laughing and young, crying, celebrating and mourning together as life forces us from college girls worried about homecoming games to adults worried about life. We hold tightly together in our brief moments together.

I love my girlfriends and I am so thankful to have them in my life. I can’t imagine my life only surrounded by smelly boys. And Lord knows I will probably have all boys in my house. I need my nice smelling, lovely, beautiful, brave, smart, challenging, real girlfriends. They make my heart fuller. My cup runneth over.

Always,