A new view!

Last night I had to play extra with the babies since we had new ways to play. The play mat for tummy time looks completely different to them when they are sitting up in their Bumbo chairs. It is great! Before I had to take turns playing with them and trying to get them to grab things because I could only hold one up at a time. Now I can prop both of them up and read to them and let them see each other better while we are playing. I sat them under the mat and they had a perfect view of the toys hanging from it and each other. They just stared at the toys and then each other back and forth as if to say "Are you seeing all of this stuff on your side too" . Addison has been a lil behind in reaching out and grabbing things but last night she was hanging onto the butterfly that her Aunt Punkin gave her and swinging it back and forth while laughing. Let's just say I am a huge fan of the Bumbo seats!

Sittin pretty

Today I did something CRAZY..... I went grocery shopping on Thursday instead of Friday! That is about as adventurous as I have been these days. While wondering through the baby aisles I noticed that they carry Bumbo chairs. I have heard of them but haven't' seen them yet. I was told that they really help with teaching to sit up and build up strength. Mom and I had to try them out first of course so Anthony got drafted since he was the one awake at the time. He looked so ridiculous in this thing sitting in the middle of the baby department on the floor but it was an immediate sale. It was just too damn cute! I bought one and mom got a purple one for Addison. I couldn't wait to get them home and have them try them out together.

Mom followed me home so that she could see Addison's reaction to the new chair. She LOVES it! They are both able to move around and look all around the room without leaning back in the bouncy seat. This give me something easier to pack when we go visit someplace and can be wiped down instead of washing the cover of the bouncy. They always spit up on it as soon as I put it back on anyway. Gotta love those smiles! The best shot is the one that Grandma Harb took from the back of their heads while watching TV in them. CLASSIC!

What is an ice storm like?

This entry is for my family out in California. I snapped these pics of my car outside this morning. I wanted you to see how my car looked like a glazed doughnut (as one of mom's friends call it) The ice covered EVERYTHING! Luckily we didn't have any power outages or anything. We got out today though mom came and we headed to Walmart to do some grocery shopping for the week. It was great to get out of the house! Victoria was beside herself jumping and playing in the store. She was thrilled to not be confined to her 3X3 room. Who would of thought I would be excited to get to Walmart?

James is on his way home tonight driving in this. He has lost count on the cars that he has watched slide off of the road in front of him. I will be waiting on pins and needles until he hits the door.

Ice Ice Baby

Well the storm has set in. I got the pleasant surprise of Mamaw coming and picking up Victoria so that she could send some smiles Papaw's way. He is home now. They sent him home yesterday so that he could start building up his strength. They were going to put him in a nursing home but all of the ones that didn't make the recently released "Nation's worst" were all full! Imagine that. I warned Mamaw that there was a ice storm coming and she still insisted on taking her she just had me pack a bag for her. Could it be that I am going to just have the babies to tend to during this ice storm? It is coming down hard now and I haven't heard a word from them. I guess they are keeping her. My car already has ice covering it. BRING ON THE ICE! Mommy has a sitter!

I can't complain though. We have been getting along pretty well. We pulled out the couch and started a new tradition of watching American Idol on the sleeper sofa in the living room. We pop popcorn and have our favorite pillows and blankets. Commercials turn into Victoria Idol. She starts singing numbers and random letters while throwing her hands in the air making these dramatic motions. She is quite the star. We are both impressed with the young dark headed boy and the guy with the dreads. The Asian girl and the girl with the fro are our favorite girls. I am interested to see how this season is going to play out.

After Idol was over and Victoria made her way to her own bed daddy called to tell me to go outside and look up. I had forgotten about the lunar eclipse. We shared a romantic moment looking up at the moon together from states away. Here I was in my driveway in New Albany and he was on the PA turnpike sharing the moon and stars with me. He is such a romantic. I love it! It is just a shame that he wasn't close enough to hug.

I think I am going to puke!

This week the Craig house was deemed the house of sick people. Both babies have been throwing up and having, let's just say, no so pleasant diapers. Mommy rushed out to get some Pedialyte so that we could start the re hydration process. Poor lil Anthony just couldn't keep anything down. He was as happy as can be though. James and I were playing with him in his bouncy seat jiggling him and making him laugh. I snapped a pic while daddy was doing it and captured this expression that still sends me into hysterics.

Daddy had it too the nausea and headache along with a fever. I found him like this in our bed proudly wearing my favorite throw blanket on his head because he was freezing. I told him I was going to make him wear that all of the time when he goes to bed to protect our walls. He sleeps with his forehead pressed up against the wall as you can see where he has rubbed a nice hole in the paint exposing the horrible blue sponge paint that mom and I covered over when I moved in. He wakes up with white paint smudged on his forehead. We have holes in the paint on every wall that we have had our bed on. I love him anyway though, I will just start handing him a paintbrush in the morning.

The meds are not working!!!!!!!!!

About a week ago my family doc put me on Lexapro, the miracle drug for anxiety and depression. (who woulda thunk?) They are little pills that make mommy happy and not care about stress. I am a much more relaxed person and people want to be around me more these days. The only problem is they make me a lil nauseous. With having a touch of the bug a few days back I opted to quit taking them for a short bit to help my stomach get back on track. James made a comment on the phone last night..."Honey were you suppose to take your medicine once a day or twice? " I responded with "Can you tell I haven't taken them in a while?" He quickly answered "uh.... Yes!" So today with my stomach better I took one first thing this morning.



I cancelled my counseling appointment this morning when I saw all of the school closing still in affect. My friend Marlina, still came over to scan some pics for her video for her wedding. It wasn't a problem until we discovered that the 20 minutes that I spent scanning pics only resulted in one pic making it to the computer to save. I was trying to figure out what the problem was while explaining to Victoria that I will put High School Musical in for her in a bit when there was a knock at the door. I opened it to find that I had forgotten about a scheduled 10:30 therapy appointment for Anthony. (Glad I cancelled my 10:30 with my counselor) Then the phone rang! OK so let's see.....computer not working like it should for Marlina and I, Therapist here to work with Anthony not prepared, babies were suppose to eat a half hour ago (lost track of time dealing with computer) and starting to get fussy, Victoria wanting to watch a movie, and the phone ringing all at the same time...........FIND A VEIN I NEED 1000CC'S OF LEXAPRO STAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can't imagine why I would be dealing with anxiety! We managed though, I lead the therapist into the nursery to show her to Anthony so that she could get started, put in a movie for Victoria, and put Addison in her bouncy seat at the foot of Marlina to bounce while she managed the computer thing on her own, the phone would have to wait. Anthony did amazing with his physical therapy and Kim our therapist ranted and raved about his progress with just the work that I have been doing so far trying to get him to use his left side more.



The phone call was Mamaw and Papaw. Papaw has started shaking alot and they are doing bone scans on him to check things out. Not sure when they are going to have results on that. Mamaw is barely holding up. I just try to keep her smiling and laughing. I told her about the therapy and how smart and advanced that Anthony is at his age and she responded with "Of course he is a Craig!" We then got into a playful argument about Pennington blood flowing through his veins too. They are just testing and testing and not giving us a whole lot of info at this point except what they are testing. It is becoming very day by day.



Last night was a very exciting yet scary night for me. Not only was it the beginning of the new season of Big Brother 9 (I am such a sucker for that show) but my son has started inch worm crawling. He only needs to figure out that he can raise up on his hands to realize that he can be VERY mobile! I got it on video for daddy thought I would share. He made a complete 180 on his blanket pushing around. He got quite upset with the fact that he can figure out how to get his face up while trying to navigate. My boy is growing up way to quick.

The incredible shrinking house

Funny how a home feels so much smaller when you are snowed in. Victoria was sick earlier this week and I decided it was my turn yesterday. There is a flu bug crawling around our house. If I find him be sure that I am going to smack him with a fly swatter. Yesterday I felt horrible! I didn't leave the couch much. James left around noon and I barely made it through the rest of my day. Victoria made herself very helpful taking care of mommy. For as nuts as she makes me on some days, when I am sick she really becomes a helper. We sat on the couch last night watching our favorite show America's funniest pets and people. She made sure I stayed covered up with my blanket and had plenty to drink. She would come over to my side of the couch and brush my hair out of my face and kiss my forehead. She can be such a sweetheart!

Today I am feeling better but not exactly "with it". Victoria and I watched Toy Story 2 on the couch today and cuddled for a bit before I fixed my famous pancakes. The snow didn't hit quite as hard as they talked about last night but the ice that is setting in looks wicked. Our lil Charlie Brown Christmas tree outside in the front yard looks quite bogged down with ice. My car is completely encased in it. Being "stuck" makes our home feel half the size as it is. I need to get out!

We didn't make it out of the house much this weekend. James spent most of his time home with his dad. Papaw is still in the hospital. The doc's have given him about 2 years if he responds to chemo and about 6 months if he doesn't. They also told Vicki that infection could take him immediately. They are doing more tests on his kidneys. They have told us that there is nothing that they want to go into detail about with his kidneys. "Don't worry about it" they say. If they are not going to give us all of the info then why even bother telling us what else could be going wrong. He still hasn't passed anything into his colonoscopy bag and they are concerned about that. They have him on 4 bags of meds in his IV to help him digest food but they don't seem to be working. His stomach is beginning to swell again. They are getting ready to send him to a rehabilitation center in New Albany because he needs 24/7 supervision and their insurance will only take care of in home health for 5 days. Gotta love insurance! Hopefully he can regain some strength in rehab to be able to handle some chemo. We have heard horror stories about chemo and are not looking forward to what is ahead of us. We just keep praying for a miracle.

Victoria's version of the Bible

This week I bought a "Read together Bible" for Victoria and I. I thought it would be a good addition to our prayers before bedtime. The first night we read of the story of Adam and Eve and splurged and read about Noah too.

This morning I asked Victoria about what we learned about last night. She talked about Adam and "Evening" and how God made Adam out of dust and Evening out of Adam's "ribbon". She also let me in on the fact that a snake tricked Evening and now he is on his belly. Noah built a "bark" because Jesus was going to bring water called a "float". Then God put the rainbow outside to say "Not do that anymore!" It is quite interesting to hear her tell it. I can't wait to hear about Jonah! That should be a good one.

Sick Island

My mother has been teased relentlessly about her obsession with alcohol when we got sick as kids. We were quarantined to our rooms and banned from touching any surface that could be "contaminated" with germs. We told her repeatedly that we were going to make her a holster for her alcohol bottle so that she is ready at a moments notice. She would be ready when someone would sneeze she could hose them down to the point of dripping so that nobody else would get sick. I sit here typing this as I am sitting at my desk with my alcohol bottle by my side. I am completely turning into my mother. I have given it a lil twist though. "Sick Island". Her room has been deemed Sick Island since yesterday. She is able to watch as many movies as she wants and dance in her Cinderella dress and play to her hearts content. She just has to stay on vacation on the island. I get to keep the rest of the house relatively germ free and she is able to play and have a party in her "island". Today she chose an ensemble of her Cinderella dress, white tights, Orange fuzzy hat, Little Mermaid crown, sunglasses and her new $4 rain boots that Mommy found on an end cap at Target. The boots zip up and she has trouble remembering that the zippers go on the inside of her legs. She came out to show me how beautiful she looked when she finished getting dressed. I told her she looked "Fabulous!" as I tried to hold back laughter when I noticed that her boots were on the wrong feet. After drawing her attention to the fact that to toes of her lovely boots were pointing outward instead of in. She replied with "That is probably why my feet hurt."..... Makes sense to me!

Becoming an "official" mom

Today I was "officially" included into the group of motherhood. I was puked on. Victoria is "not feeling so well" as she says. It started last night with Grandma's meatloaf. She was a lil pokey eating and I didn't think anything of it. She quickly got up and ran to Grandma's bathroom. She started laughing when I told her "You really DIDN"T like Grandma's meatloaf didn't you?" She kinda giggled and told me "yes". So now I am home with a sick kid and an aching back. Storms blew through last night and we slept on Grandma's concrete basement floor. (My body feels like I am 90 today) We made it through the storm unharmed and our house is still standing. Our neighbors underpinning is off of his trailer down the whole side by our house. I get it got pretty wicked last night. Glad we were safe. (Thanks Grandma)

Talked to James this morning. The doc came to see his dad this morning and informed him that his lymph nodes are about 40% infected with Cancer. It is in stage 3-4. They are wanting to wait for about 3weeks to a month to start Chemo for him to get his strength up for it. Things are not good. There has been no time frame discussed and we are just waiting to see. James is on his way home now and he is going to go and see his dad in the morning. Papaw says he isn't in pain other than his surgery site and we are happy for that.

The storm before the storm

Today I was ready to head to my mom's house to take shelter from the severe storm that is heading our way. Little did I know that storm of another kind was moving in. I called Bridgepointe today to make an appointment for Victoria for an evaluation for counseling and was turned down. They told me that they do not do family counseling and that they would only offer help to Anthony. I ended up cancelling the appointment and became disgusted with another road block in getting help for this poor child.

After letting the rejection from Bridgepoint set in I received a call from Vicki, James mom. She was very upset and crying and called to let me know that they found Cancer in Papaw's colon and that it has already spread to his lymph nodes. We are not yet sure what stage it is in and the are starting chemo very soon. I was asked to tell James this horrible news. I called my dad unable to find the words to tell my husband that his dad is facing a diagnosis of Cancer that has already spread. While on the phone James was beeping in calling my dad. Dad decided to deliver the news to him for me. He of course is not doing well and away from home. I want nothing more than to be able to hug him and comfort him. I am not sure how much more we can handle here as far as stress factors. Life is dealing us some incredible miracles and yet sending some real trials too. This too shall pass and God will take care of us he always has and always will. Please pray for us.

Choices choices

Well today we packed up the troops and headed to Pekin to show the girls the houses that we have been looking at. The girls loved the Cabin and Victoria loved the smaller house with the huge yard. She is already talking about a swing set in the yard. Our agent that we have been working with showed us another house in Salem that is 5 bedrooms that is also getting foreclosed on. They are asking 115.000. It is a HGTV flip this house dream. Brick outside with an attached two car garage. The carpet would have to be replaced completely throughout the house and paint throughout too. The yard again is waterlogged and it needs some landscaping BAD! The upstairs is adorable with two nice sized bedrooms with a bonus room that would make a wonderful play room for kids. One is already painted an obnoxious purple color for Victoria. My biggest complaint are the ceilings. They are textured in two different patterns. They are bordered in a typical texture pattern about a foot wide and then there is an inch and a half strip of paint in the color of the room then on the inside a fan pattern...........That is horrible! The rooms are blue, burgundy, biege, purple, pink, and a dark blue. All of them have a paint strip in the ceiling in the color of the room . We will just say it was an "interesting" choice. We have talked it over and decided if we choose that house that we could do a wood trim in the ceiling over the paint strip to make it look a lil less odd. The rooms upstairs have the semi catherdral ceilings and built in shelves that are really neat! I could be really excited about this house too but it would need some work immediately before we would be able to move in.

AHHHHH choices. What do we do. We love the cabin more and more. Then again this new house presented to us would be a REALLY attractive home once it had some work. We could always get a modular and a piece of land. Or we could just stay here in our humble trailer and ROT! We don't want to make a jump decision before we do some research on what is available but the more and more that we look the more and more we are confused. I am needing God to just post a big neon arrow above the house that we are suppose to move on. We could just drive around and look for the arrow that says RIGHT HERE PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Prayer needed for Papaw Craig

James was barely making it home this weekend when he received a call from his mom to tell him that his dad is heading to the hospital. He was complaining of stomach pains and running a fever. James headed straight to the hospital at midnight. At 4am James finally called with an update that they were taking him back into surgery to find out what the problem is. He said that they were looking for the worst. They did an MRI and is showed nothing so the were possible thinking Cancer. They were apprehensive to put him under because his blood pressure was bottoming out and they were worried about the risk of putting him under. When they opened him up they found that his colon had burst inside of him. They had to completely remove his colon. He is recuperating and heavily sedated. He is still in a lot of pain and trying to get some rest. Of course the risk of infection is very high so we are needing some prayers sent up to help heal Papaw Craig. I will keep everyone posted.

On a good note we dedicated the babies at church tonight. My sister and niece even came to see. They were a hit and I have to admit that I loved hearing all of the "ooooooooooohhhhhhhhs" when we stood in front of the camera for the church to see our beautiful babies.