Laurie's Life

Four years ago tonight we had just checked into the hospital to have this precious baby girl. She was born at 3:17 a.m. on Dec 29th. It was one of the VERY best days of my life! I never knew how much I would love Emily Paige. I never knew being a parent would be so hard. Kelly took these pictures the day she was born. I look at them often and think about how MUCH I love that sweet little thing. We never knew she would be so funny. I am afraid that a 4 year old cannot be as funny as a 3 year old. I hope I am wrong. Emily has some crazy names for her stuffed animals. I have written a few of them down so I can remember. I have heard her say these names: Nia, Chilla, Cheena and just a few minutes ago she said, "One day I gonna have a baby girl and I gonna name her Doe-Leah, You think that be a fretty name?" I told her yes. I was just trying to be nice. I SURE hope her taste in names changes by the time she gives me a grandchild. Last night Emily helped me make

A VERY Happy Birthday to my best friend and sister. It is sooo great to have a friend that I can be myself 100% and you still love me! Ha! You make me laugh more than anyone! I admire you more than you will ever know. I know your day will be great! I know there is some way to make this show up tomorrow, but you know I don't know how to do it. I love you!

I wish I could say that Sarah Kate is pointing to heaven and saying "Jesus." That would be appropriate since we are celebrating His birth, but that would be a lie. She is saying," NO, NO!!!!" This her favorite thing to say lately. I don't know how to stop it. She points her chubby finger and says, "no, no" all the time. I just had to get some pictures of the girls in their new Christmas dresses before church.

Clinique Happy!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The second runner up is Escada Into the Blue! The search is over, until next Christmas. I realize that most people don't put this much time, effort and research into buying a car. We went to the mall as a family today. Steve is soooooo kind and generous. He decided that since we like both of these a whole lot that he would just get me two. That is sooo him. I am so happy with my final choice. I doubt they sell more than about two bottles of Into the Blue a year, but I love the smell........ crisp and clean. It is so me to find some unheard of fragrance to love. I always seem to order things at restaurants that they have to dig out of the back of the freezer. Like meatloaf or something along the lines of that. Instead of going for a Coke or something normal, I will buy some Peach Nectar that has dust on it. You get my point. Steve did say that he hoped I would not remind him of Orange Pledge or orange dish detergent wearing the Happy. Oh well

UPDATE: Tonight I smelled Viva La Juicy. OH MY WORD!!!!!!!!! I fell in love.............knew this was the one!!! Came home, let Steve smell me and this is what he said," I don't like that AT ALL!" UHHGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THE ONLY one he seems to really like is Happy. I like it too! (May be what I get) Ohhhhhh I have just LOVED reading your comments about the perfume!!!!!!!!! Thank you for taking the time to do that! I have become really good friends with the ladies at Dillards and Perfume Mania. They seem to get nicer to me each day. I am thinking they may be getting scared of me and so they are trying to be extra nice. I have been there EVERYDAY! Yep, that's right. Here is what I have learned about myself with your help and theirs: I love fresh, fruity, green leaf, flowery scents, crisp fragrances. These are the scents I have worn in the past and LOVED: Pleasures Happy Love Spell Lauren Escada-Summer scents Chance in the green bottle Private Coll

Every year I like to get a new perfume for Christmas. I told Steve that is what I want him to get me this year. Last year he got me Chanel Chance. I have enjoyed it, but I am ready for something new. I have always LOVED perfume! When I wear it, I like to WEAR it! Like enough to choke a mule. For years, I have worn Pleasures by Este Lauder. I will always keep a bottle of it in my cabinet. Every Spring I like to buy Escadas Spring scent. They are always fresh and fruity smelling. My all time FAVORITE perfume has been Tropical Punch(Escada). People would stop me and ask what I was wearing. Ohhhhh I loved it. But, it was a one time only Spring scent , never to be made again. When LPM blog did a perfume poll this past Summer, a lot of people said they loved Light Blue. I went to Sephora and it had a sign saying it was their #1 best seller. I sprayed it and LOVED it!!!!!! Went home and asked Steve if he liked how I smelled. He said, " It smells like a hot grill." N

Sarah Kate does NOT like Santa.........Can you tell? As I handed her over to Santa's lap I heard VERY heavy breathing, then came the scream that could be heard all over the mall. Emily seems to be confused with a beard and a beak. She keeps referring to Santa's beard as his beak. I think I have made it clear to her. She has been saying,"Santa's beak keeps him warm." "Santa has a long beak." As we walked up to Santa, Emily looked at Sarah Kate very matter of fact and said, "Sarah Kate, take your cissy out, you don't want Santa to see it!" Cissy is her pacifier. Merry Christmas!

Emily has been very "into" Christmas this year. She has loved helping me decorate and all that. My Christmas tree will never be found in Southern Living or House Beautiful. It has no theme, nothing too pleasing to the eye, BUT it is special to me because I use all sorts of ornaments on it. Ornaments I made with my Grandmother, old ornaments we had growing up, ones I got from kids when I taught, ones from friends and ornament exchanges. I can remember something about most every one. I believe Emily has touched EVERY ornament this year. She has broken 4 of them in the past 24 hours. Yesterday I hear, "MOOOOOOMMM, OHHHHH LOOOOOK, this snowman looks just like you holding Kristen! OH MY GOSH!!!!!!!!!!!!!................it looks like you!!!!!!!!!!! " What do you say to that????? I DO have very very white skin and get bigger as I go down. I smile big too. Who knows? Emily has been wanting bows for the tree. I told her last night that I did not have any bows.

We spent Thanksgiving Day at Steve's Granny's house. I had some wonderful food! Steve's Granny had 8 children. They are one big loving family and eat together every Sunday after church. Here's Granny!

I heard something on the radio the other night and I don't have this exactly right but Nancy Leigh DeMoss said something like this," What if your supply tomorrow depended on your thankfulness today?" I thought this was great. They talked about thanking God for everything. It is good to be home tonight. We left town for nine days to visit our families. We really enjoyed our time together. We spent the first part of our trip in South Arkansas with my folks and the second half with Steve's folks in Memphis. We left crazy Kristen the cat alone for all those days. I am happy to report that she did survive but there is cat fur EVERYWHERE. When she is stressed, she pulls her fur out. She is bald on the left side tonight. The majority of my packing for our trip was a medicine bag. Yes, I took everything we had for sick children. Of course, the one drug I did not bring was Emily's cough syrup that she was prescribed a couple of weeks ago. We left town with a

We could not make it through the week without a trip to the MD. SK has a had terrible cough runny nose and found out today she has a double ear infection. Oh My!!!!!!!!!! She got good and healthy last week and here we go again. SK has acted very normal until this afternoon and she started running a little fever. I knew she had a little cold. I have just worn my girls out with all the activities we are involved in. I am going to have to drop something. SK has to be in the nursery for everything I do and she just cannot handle it right now. We need to slow down. Last week was so nice because we did not do any of our activities. Emily never questioned a thing about missing her stuff and she got to snuggle in bed with me every morning and sleep late. It was nice! I just want to make it through one week without a MD visit. Good news: I think we have hit our deductable!

Emily has a new expression that she says all the time, "Mama, my hair is really growing up!" Thank goodness it is" growing up" and out! I have not had it cut since the mullet cutting in April. Truth be known, Sarah Kate's hair is actually longer than Emily's. My girls are growing up too! Makes me sad. I am trying to enjoy each day that I have with them. The girls are always so excited when their daddy gets home at night. When they hear the door open , they stop what they are doing and run to him. They like to play a game that Emily calls "mean bear." Steve pretends to be a bear and chase them. I tried to get some pictures tonight of a game of mean bear. I want to always remember it. The mean bear was about ready for hibernation when I took these pictures.

My head is spinning, literally. I have some sort of upper respiratory infection or a cold. I am not sure what I have, but I have been feeling very light-headed for the past couple of days. My head is also spinning from the crazy week we have had. We made another trip to the MD last night. I made appts. for both girls to get checked out. SK's finger was still bleeding yesterday around 4:30. She has a terrible zit on her cheek I wanted checked out and she has a runny nose and cough. Emily was still running 102.9 fever late yesterday afternoon. I knew I could not sleep until they saw their MD. The MD said that he would have put a stitch in SK's finger, but at this point it was too late. He put her on an antibiotic and he said it would cover her face and congestion. He also gave us Bactroban to use on her. Emily STILL has an ear infection and croup. He put her on a Z-Pac. I am happy to report that both girls have had good days!!!!!!!!! I think Sarah Kate's finger l