First Day of Preschool

Day 1 complete... now let's see what tomorrow holds since he knows what to expect. I was shocked to get my forever planned first day of preschool pic after the ordeal of getting clothed and ready. It's just going to have to be that everyday Walker will enter school with a rooster-like hairdo. I did wet it down, but with no success. Also, I went to buy him a new pair of New Balances to replace last year's small and dirty ones he's wearing in the pic but he will not put them on his feet. Maybe he'll get tired of us cramming his feet in them.
After saying goodbye to daddy he graciously went to the front steps to entertain my request. He did such a good job. Next, it was on to the unbelievably short but sweet car ride. He is absolutely at his purest and sweetest during our morning rides together. That little booger remembered when we started getting about a block away from the church because he started whimpering "Let's go home mommy." He cried a little as I passed him off to his teacher but nothing too bad. I knew he would be fine.
When I picked him up, he was so excited to tell me all about it. So, overall I think it was a success. The best part for me... daily naps and Hallelujah! we are back on schedule!!!!

Will Haney Benefit Concert

Today Zac and I went to the Limestone Rodeo Arena to help support the Will Haney Fund. Will and Emily are currently in Houston for a round of treatments but it was nice to hang out with all the tons of friends and family. This amazing event was put together by Lacy Beth Newton. She has done so much to help raise money. There were several bands playing through out the day, great food, and the silent auction... Zac's entertainment for the day. The tables were filled with a lot of nice things like UA/ UT tickets, Eli Manning signed football (went for $800), awesome AU prints, spa packages, beach trips...etc. Zac spent the day bidding on a signed Pat Dye print and won! I bid on a cute diaper bag, and got it as well. It was fun! I can't wait to see the total amount of money raised just from this event alone. It was so successful.

Staying close to the auction table...

One of the bands we watched while cooling off in the shade...

Pat Dye and Bear Bryant bird hunting... Zac is very happy!

And my diaper bag... it matches the nursery so I thought why not...

4-D Ultrasound

I went for my 4D ultrasound this week in hopes of getting a glimpse of what baby Mary Ella will look like. Unfortunately, she had other plans. She gave us plenty of feet and hand shots. I'm so happy Dr. Miller said during my next visit we could take another look to see if we can get her face. She got a pretty clear face shot in the regular ultrasound but when she switched it over to 4D you couldn't see her face at all. To get a clear shot, the part you are looking for must be in a fluid pocket. We did see the back of her head. LOL! Strange thing is... this black and white face picture looks a lot like what Walker looked like as a newborn.

Fayetteville, TN. Day Trip

Project Nursery: It took me a while, but I now see the finished project... a pink and ivory Toile nursery with white furniture and a touch of turquoise accents. Walker is at my mom's for the week end so I thought this would be the perfect time to get started. Zac and I went up to Fayetteville so I could get my fabric from Sirs. I am so glad we went there b/c they have awesome prices! My mother is a master seamstress so she will be making the curtains, bumper pad, bed skirt, and pillows. She made Walker's nursery and big boy room curtains and such so I know how wonderful things will turn out. The room was inspired by a nursery I saw in Pottery Barn. I can't wait to get started on putting it all together. We are about to undergo construction of adding a new room which will end up being the new office. Our current office is the room the nursery will have to be in, so I have to wait for that first. I know I only have about 2 months left before baby girl gets here, but heck... when I was this pregnant with Walker we sold our house in Auburn, bought a house and moved all our stuff to Athens, I interviewed with the Athens School System (got hired, thank God), moved all my classroom stuff to a new school, and setup a house and nursery all in time for Walker's arrival. Everything will be fine. I just can't wait to be sitting in our settled house holding her and Walker knowing everything is just as I pictured my life at 31 years old... crazy but wonderful. LOL!




Here are a few on my first finds for the nursery...

Toile fabric with the stripe fabric for accents...

I found this bowl at The Ivy Wreath on Fayetteville's square.

When we got back to the Athens Square, I stopped off at Belles and Beaus to get this perfect white wood spindle crib. I want to use old furniture in the nursery so this was a perfect find. All it needs is a paint touch up. The best part... I got it for $29!!!!

What's Cancer To A Giant?

God is great! He has answered many prayers to help Will Haney with his fight against cancer. Earlier this year he was diagnosed with a rare cancer called rhabdomyosarcoma. The news wasn't good so he and his family luckily made their way to M.D. Anderson in Houston, TX. Along with the help of these wonderful doctors, a whole town of people praying, and above all an amazing God, Will was able to come home for a week to visit and take a break from the chemo. He and Emily were surprised at the airport Friday night by all their friends and family as they walked through the gate. I can't even express the emotions that were flying all around. It was a very special moment that I'll never forget.

There was plenty of reason for cheer and congratulations... Before the hard core 6 week period of chemo and treatments, Will and Emily was told by the doctors that if all the "Hot spots" were not changed, there wouldn't be anything else they could do for him. This was a blow seeing it was coming from the mouths of some of the best doctors in the world! But thankfully, with all the prayers and treatments, the 6 week scan was done and PRAISE THE LORD, the spots had shrunk to half their size!!!!

Now Will and Emily will go back to Houston for another 6 week period of treatments before another scan is done. Of course the prayers needed in this time will be important and most definitely needed by all. Please pray that God will rid this terrible disease from his body and help him to get his normal, healthy life back. For all those who knows Will know he is the picture of health. Zac was thinking back of some stories as they grew up... "One of my fondest memories," he says, "of the Iron Man is when we would go to McDonald's as kids. I would order a cheeseburger, fries, coke... and he would order the healthiest thing he could find on the menu and a water. That was Will then and that is Will now."

It's really hard to understand how someone so healthy can end up in this terrible situation. But since the good news from this last week, it's easy to understand why the cancer has shrunk to half its size. It's healthy Will! He can do this. So please keep up your prayers and I will keep you posted on his progress.

Keep updated with the latest on the WillPower website...

http://gotwillpower.net/

We all love you Will and Emily!

Will and Jen's Wedding

Will and Jen had a lovely wedding at the Huntsville Botanical Gardens. The weather was great and the scenery was beautiful. Walker had so much fun with his cousins. I was so happy to see the Gardens still had the Big Bug collection displayed.

Walker and Will

Walker and Peyton

Walker and Kyle with the BIG ANT

PaPa and Granny with all the kids...

I never can get one with them all looking at the camera. Maybe Brandy did.

Walker was checking out the fish and suddenly thought he should have his picture taken. This was all him. He was into saying "cheese" which shows he was having a good time.

Everyone walking to the wedding site in the gardens...

Someone at the gardens was thinking...

Jen walking in with her dad...

Will and Jen arriving at the Phoenix Bistro. Beautiful!

Hit of the night for the kids (and their parents), the entertainment table! Jen's mom had a table set up for the kids to draw and color and a table set up for dinner. They would take a few bites at their dinner table and then go draw for a couple of minutes at the other table. They had a blast.

Goodbye to the Protector

Hank

Our sweet Hank is with us no more. He was the protector of the sheep, William's buddy, Walker's playmate, and family friend. Unfortunately his amazing ability to escape the field for a midnight stroll would end his time with us. It was just two days before this tragic event that Zac and Walker were in the field with Hank mending the fence where he recently climbed over, rather than under. He was a very large dog, almost polar bearish looking, so we found this odd. But he was a determined dog and a good one at that. We will miss him very much!

McFarland Park- July 4th & Thomas the Train- July 7th

This 4th of July we decided to go over to Florence to watch their fireworks show at McFarland Park. We thought we'd make a week end out of it and get a hotel room. HA! Boy did we wait till the last minute to make that decision (literally Friday morning). All the good hotels were booked solid so we made the decision to stay in the Jamison Inn (it was the only one we would even consider that had a room left) but later found out we would have to put it on our "not to be considered" list. Anyway while there we went for a quick dip in the pool. Zac began to chuckle as he read the pool rules aloud...

Please read rule # 7

This was especially funny to me since I found two long hairs in our supposed to be clean bath tub! Gross! I noticed Walker's feet were black after a quick run through the room. I was very upset at this point and made him stay on the bed the whole week end. If not, I was cleaning feet constantly. Zac thought I was going overboard on that until he looked at his feet after putting together a stroller (we left ours at home so we had to fly over to Target to buy one). They were BLACK!!! HA! He went straight to the front desk and showed them his feet. We probably laughed a good 30 minutes from that. He said, "Man, I'm not complaining, but in the time it took me to put together a stroller, this is how black my feet got. Ya'll need to clean the floors." The man's face was so red and he apologized. LOL!

We spent the whole day at the park. There were several things to do, like look at old cars...

After toting Walker around in the blazing sun, that's when we decided to go to the nasty hotel, let Walker take a nap, and get a stroller!

Finally, after waiting all day, the fireworks lasted, hmm, a measly 10 minutes, maybe.

But Walker LOVED them! He watched and smiled as each one burst in the night sky.

We had a good time, but have decided next year we will move on to Guntersville to see that fireworks display. Who knows... maybe I can talk Zac in to going somewhere new every year, even to see Macy's fireworks. HA! Yea right.

And finally... Thomas the Train! We went to the Von Braun to see the show and Walker loved it. Here are a few of the pictures from the show. I thought I shouldn't bore you with all the ones I took. Enjoy!

Father's Day, Beach & Zoo

This past week has been a whirl wind of events. Last Saturday we had over our dads for dinner. The next day, Father's Day, we had a full day of church and packing.

This year Walker did not like the sand. We stayed at the beach maybe a total of 30 minutes the whole week. These two pictures were from the first day. After that, it was all pool all the time! Walker loves to swim in a pool!

Walker had to have his "gobbles" on all the time, even to watch X-Men, but didn't know how to use them. He never would put his eyes down in the water. We tried to explain but forget reasoning with the unreasonable.

Walker wanted to stay on the balcony most of the time to look at the beach.

I forgot my tripod, so we took turns taking pictures with Walker.

The scorching hot Birmingham Zoo is not a place for pregnant women... but I thought it would be fun to take Walker as we came back from the beach. We went to stay with Uncle Blake in B'ham to visit and go to the zoo so Walker and Beka's niece Virginia Kate could meet. They are one month apart in age. It was so funny watching them together. They were precious.

Walker and Virginia Kate

We disguised our anger very well in this pic... We were burning up and ill as pills. Walker had just finished a major temper tantrum, but we survived. LOL!

The kids enjoyed the water area at the zoo. The problem was... we went there before we saw all the animals and they didn't want to leave it. Walker made a scene which led to us leaving early...no big African animals. LOL!

We did get to go to the petting zoo, which the kids loved.


Here was the funny train ride, if you can tell what I mean. That's Beka, her sister Kristan, Blake, and Zac. Oh, I had to change Walker's poopy diaper on the train as well. People probably thought I was crazy.

We did see one big animal.. Here's Uncle Blake and Walker in front of "Tina." We watched Napoleon Dynamite that night. Thanks Beka. It was Hilarious!

This was so sweet. The monkey kept putting his hand up to the glass to touch their hands.

And then we went home!!!! We had a great time. It took us a day to lay around and relax. I'm glad we had a fun last family vacation with Walker before the baby comes.

Life With A Superhero

How my life has changed in three short years. These days consist of trying to potty train and entertain a superhero. If we are not watching Batman, we are running around the house pretending to be Batman. All it takes is a baby towel. He has yet to take a bath without yelling, "Where is my Batman!" Will we ever retire these towels? LOL!


As I said before, we are doing everything we can to get him out of diapers. This chart is a fun and good idea but don't let the "2 week" period fool you. We have been placing stickers on this chart for a couple of months, I think. Since I've been out for summer break, We've been adding a lot more stickers in a shorter period of time, and I definitely see progress. After he puts a sticker on the chart, he gets to get a piece of candy (sugar free, but he doesn't know that... HA) out of his treat jar.

Cheesy...but it makes Batman happy!

After VBS one day, Walker and his cousins went swimming. Don't let all the floatation devices kid you. LOL! He was hilarious jumping in that pool with those flippers on. I can't wait to go to the beach next week to do a lot of swimming with him.

I was planning on taking pictures at his first dentist visit but this was all I could get... pictures of him playing in their indoor playground. Once we went back, Walker had the death grip on me and that was that. No pictures.