long overdue...

So, since it's been over 6 months since I last posted anything....

Wow. I definitely apologize for slacking there. Life has been different lately, to say the least. 

Back in March, when I last wrote anything (again, sorry for that) we had just found out that we were NOT going to be moving to Texas and would, in fact, be staying put in Mobile. Not a bad result, but definitely a stressful time period. Hubby went back to work, but it was a totally different atmosphere, as we expected it would be. In actuality, they fixed it so that he had just used up some ETO and had not officially "left" the company, so he never really quit. He did turn in his notice, but after all that mess happened, the offering company called back and made sure they would let him come back. It was a nice gesture, considering it was not hubby's fault that they were big poopy-heads. The issue became the fact that he ALMOST left and the management over his department basically used him for every trivial little thing. They used his "almost resignation" as an excuse for them to pile things up on him. He came home very frustrated almost every day. It really bothered me a lot to see that so I tried to be as helpful as I could. Then the real kicker came when it was time for his yearly evaluation. June marked his 5 year anniversary with the company. He went in for his eval, and they basically told him that they still didn't feel like he knew the system yet, so they couldn't promote him to senior support rep. If they had any actual evidence to support their claims, it would have been easier to understand. Jack continues to be one of the best support reps they have. He gets emails and letters sent back from site after site commending him on his outstanding service. It became very clear, after this eval, that he needed to make a move to get out of that department. So, he did some looking around and got set up to move to a newer department in July. It's still stressful because they are still tentative about him and the "almost" move, but it's mucho better over there. They are much more appreciative about the hard work that he does. He doesn't come home as frustrated with the management over there. 

As far as baby news... We chose not to find out what we were having this time because we already had a boy and a girl. We were just praying for a healthy baby, so we weren't really leaning towards anything else. I didn't have any pregnancy effects that were too similar to my previous pregnancies, so I couldn't guess. I intended to work up until my due date, but I felt sure that s/he would come a bit early. Imagine my surprise when I did work right up to my due date! My due date was October 28 and I delivered a beautiful baby girl on October 29! We learned from my doctor that if I wanted to have a natural delivery that I should probably stay at home for as long as possible because once I got to the hospital, they would be likely to try to get me on medicines to speed up the process. So, my water broke around 6:15 on Saturday morning, October 29. We hung out at home, called parents and got them going, and just stayed set. I walked around, sat on my birthing ball, and just tried to stay in a calm state. I wasn't really in a lot of pain at all while I was at home. Around 3ish, we decided it might be a smart idea to head to the hospital. It had already been 9 hours since my water broke and they really like to have babies delivered within 24 hours after your water breaks. I still wasn't in too much pain - barely any really. When they checked me at the hospital, I was only 4 cm dilated. I was pretty discouraged then. I had been in active labor for 9 hours and I had only gone 4 cm. At that rate, I probably wouldn't have had her until October 30th... Also, since I had gone on to the hospital, they were going to give me pitocin to speed me up. Pitocin increases (dramatically) the intensity of contractions, and I knew that I would not be able to go hours on pitocin with no help. So we got an epidural and the pitocin. I was only in the hospital for a total of 5 hours before I had her. My labor was a total of 14 hours with this one and it was just under 12 with my other two. Her first name (for all my friends who are also a member of the geek-dom) is taken from LOTR. I did look it up though :) It is also of Gaelic/Celtic origin, which is the main reason I liked it. It pays homage to Jack's Irish heritage. However, on the blog, we're just going to call her E. We've really enjoyed becoming parents again. D has been fine, of course. B is still adjusting, but she's doing really well.

Life has been stressful these last 4 months though... 

At the end of September, my Aunt (dad's sister) had to be rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery. She'd been having episodes of gout previous to that and the medicine she was taking for gout, combined with all her other medications, had started eating a hole in her stomach lining, which released gas into her abdomen. She had successful laproscopic surgery at Mobile Infirmary and was expected to make a full recovery from that. My mom and dad got her set up to go into a nursing home/rehab facility for a 21 day stay that Medicare would pay for. She had been in bad health for a while and we felt that if she was in a rehab facility, she would get her meds straight and get some physical therapy so that way she would be better capable to take care of Memaw. We didn't really know that it was the beginning of the end though. Before she got discharged from Mobile Infirmary, she tested positive for MRSA. She's had it before, and once you've had it once, it never goes away. It will go dormant, but if you ever get in an environment where it's present, it will activate. So, she was able to be discharged to the rehab facility, but we couldn't go see her without being robed and masked until the MRSA was gone. I couldn't go see her because I was pregnant and I couldn't take the kids to see her either. She was in the rehab facility for over a week before the MRSA finally deactivated. Before her 21 days were over, she got a stomach virus and got dehydrated at the facility and had to be put back in the ICU at Mobile Infirmary. After she recovered from that, she went back to the facility to finish out the stay. They decided to have her stay longer than the 21 days (since she had not really been getting any treatment) and she'd just pay OOP for it. She got well enough for the kids to see her the weekend that E was born. Mom took them by to see her before she brought them to the hospital. A short time after that, her MRSA came back for a bit. It didn't stay as long this time though. I didn't get out and really go anywhere with E until Veteran's day weekend. We went to church that Sunday and we were planning to all go up to mom's the next weekend to do out Thanksgiving with them. On that Friday, I learned that she was in the hospital again, but at Springhill. She had come down with pneumonia on Monday or Tuesday of that week and it had not gotten any better. She was not getting enough oxygen and they had her sent to Springhill so she could get hooked up to a breathing tube. We were going to leave on Saturday going up to mom's so I thought I'd stop by on my way out and take the kids (with the baby) to see her. I called mom on the way and she said not to go by because she was in ICU and not just a regular room. Dad was down there and the kids wouldn't have been allowed to go back anyway. So we went on up to mom's. Dad called mom before he left to come back up and let her know that it was not looking good. Up until that point, I had not thought that it would be that bad. When he got home, he gave us all the details. She was sent over to Springhill on Thursday evening. She was still not getting enough oxygen even after she got there though, so she signed off to be put on a ventilator. They did that on Friday and from what the doctor said, they had to work all night long to keep her from dying on Friday night. Her pneumonia was no longer just in her lungs. The infection had spread just about everywhere. All the medicine that she was taking for all the infections and everything else was causing her blood pressure to drop and they doing everything they could to keep it up. Her lungs and heart were not strong enough to keep fighting. The doctor said that she only had about a 10% chance of getting over the pneumonia and even if she did clear the infection, she would likely have to stay hooked up to a ventilator for the rest of her life. She didn't have any kind of advanced directive, so dad couldn't tell them to stop any treatment. The doctor asked him that if her heart stopped, did he want them to start it back and he said no. I don't really know how to explain emotions then. I know that she would never have wanted to live hooked up to machines. That wouldn't have been a life worth living. We all came back down to the hospital on Sunday. Mom told me that one of the times she had visited her when she was in the rehab place, she had said that she probably wouldn't make it out of Mobile and that she'd probably die down here. On the day before Thanksgiving, the doctor called dad and said that the needed to come down to make a decision about things. The infection was not getting any better and they were giving her the highest dose of blood pressure medicine that they could give her. Basically, if they gave her any more meds, the meds themselves would kill her. They had to make the decision to take her off all the meds and the ventilator. I was not present for that, but mom said it didn't take long. They had to leave the room for them to start taking her off of everything, but once they got it all off and out, which was around 3:30 pm, mom said it didn't take but about 5 minutes and she was gone. I still can't believe that she's gone. It's been a very hard Christmas for me. She was so looking forward to being able to help me with the new baby and she never even got to see her. I also don't really feel like I've had the chance to properly grieve for her. I have too much that I have to do and take care of. I'm always having to be strong for someone and it would be so nice if I could have the alone time enough to fully grasp everything. But of course, being a mom, it's hard to have any alone time. I can't complain though. Even though I've lost one of the most important women in my life, I am still blessed beyond measure. 

I only have a little over 3 weeks left on my leave, but I think we're going to try things with me staying home. If I went back to work, my paycheck would basically pay for daycare and maybe a few other things, so we're going to see how it works for me to stay home. I'm going to try to get into selling Mary Kay or Avon to help bring in some money so it won't be too hard on us. We'll see though. I haven't yet had a good long time to sit and read up on that. I tell ya, if we have another kid, I'm hoping it will not be the holiday season when we have it. I loved being off work this time of year, but it's been hard to get stuff done with a newborn and a toddler around all the time... 

Anyway, now that I have written all that I can stand to write at this moment, I'll leave it as it is. Maybe I'll get a little better about keeping up with this. Ha!

How's this for unexpected??

Well, I don't think the blog will blow up from all the updates lately, so I now have some rather unexpected and pretty disappointing news.

We were about 99.9% ready to get the moving ball rolling, with that .1% being the fact that the kids and I would still be here until summer. Hubby was all set to meet with the people from the hospital about finalizing start dates and all that jazz. He went to the meeting on Thursday at noon. He didn't get out of the meeting until around 3:30. It was not a good meeting. It turns out that the hospital has been bought out. The CEO had known about it, but had not shared the info with the other members of the corporate team. Literally. The CEO was the ONLY one who knew about it. So, Wednesday night was when it all went down. Thursday at noon was when they told everyone. The company that bought them out is bringing in their own people to run the corporate office, which meant that pretty much everyone that hubby knew and had been in contact with about this job has now lost theirs. Also, since the company is bringing in their own people, they are not hiring any new people. This means that hubby will not be hired on and we will not be moving to Dallas. So.... yeah.

That was pretty devastating news to hear. I literally don't have any idea how I made it to get the kids or made it home from work yesterday. I somehow managed to keep the kids from seeing me in the big bad emotional wreck that I was. I mean, I was shocked and angry and a whole bunch of other emotions rolled into one. We were so close to being able to leave and start a new chapter and possibly bring new and better things to our lives. Now, we weren't even sure hubby would be able to get his old job back. Luckily, the hospital decided it would be fairly nice and call back to Mobile to talk to his director about hiring him back. After all, it wasn't his fault that he wasn't going to be starting this new job. It was their fault. Hubby got a call back today, letting him know that they would hire him back. Technically, none of his termination paperwork was processed yet anyway, so he was still on payroll. They just docked some of his ETO for him being out this last week. He's going to take next week too so he'll actually start back fresh in a new pay period. It's definitely a blessing that they had not processed his paperwork and they are letting him come back. He had left on good terms, no problems in his record and with the 2 week notice and everything, so they really had no good reason not to let him come back.

In a nutshell, we aren't moving but we are still sore from this disappointment. I did let go of my selfishness and trust that God would take care of this and He has. I am choosing to believe that this was somewhat of a test. Somewhat (notice I am saying "somewhat") similar to the story of Abraham and Isaac. When God wanted to test Abraham's faith by telling him to sacrifice his son, Isaac. Abraham did what was asked and took Isaac up to the mount to prepare the sacrifice. When God saw that Abraham was going to go through with it, He provided an alternative. He wanted to see that Abraham trusted Him and had faith enough to do what He asked without question. Now, I know this is not exactly the same, seeing as how there was no child up for sacrifice or anything. But, we had prayed about this job and really felt like God was telling us to go out there. It wasn't going to be the easiest thing, but we were ready to do it and trust that God was going to help us and make this the best thing for us. And then this blow happened. Now, I can't help but wonder if maybe God wanted to see if we would trust Him enough to go, even though we would be leaving all that we knew. He saw that we were willing to go. Maybe he took this away because He has better things planned for us. I can't pretend to know how God works, but this is what I'm going with. I do know that He has a plan for all things and that all things work together for the good of those who love Him and who have been called according to His purpose.

I am happy with that. God's grace is sufficient for me. His strength is made perfect in my weakness.

Continuing with updating...

So, now that I've made it through January with updating, it won't be hard to bring everything up to speed and be current.

Our newest big news is that we are going to be moving to Dallas (yikes!) and that we will be welcoming a new baby in October. Here's how it all went down:

Hubby has been happy at his job (or as happy as you can be, I guess). But, we both know that we had goals for our family that might be hard to achieve if he stayed with the company. He had put some feelers out at different times for different things. One of those feelers (that had been put out long, long ago - as in at least a year or more) came back with a bite. He had some productive conversations with the Chief Information Officer of a company that shall remain nameless right now (sorry, just have some particulars to iron out before we can get all into that). He was basically offered a job to come aboard with them as the Director of Application Support. Meaning, he would be the coordinator for any new software installs and re-trains and things of that nature. The formal letter was emailed and an application packet was received in the mail. We seriously thought and prayed about it, because if he accepted this position, it meant that we would be relocating to the Dallas area. So, obviously, we decided that it would be best for our family if he accepted the position. He will start the job on April 11, and will have to be out there living in an apartment for a while. The kids and I will remain here until school gets out. We intend to put our house on the market *hopefully* by mid- to late-April. There's a lot that has to be done before that can happen though. I will work until school gets out. My last day of work will be the same day that D gets out of school. I will take the rest of the time through the end of June to finish getting everything in the house packed up. We plan to be out of the house by the end of June. Please say a prayer that we are able to get the house sold. There are many foreclosures in our area, and it is making house sales plummet.

As for the baby news... Hubby and I had really been trying to get pregnant for a little while now. We knew that B was going to be 2 and I really wanted to either have a baby or be pregnant by the time I turn 30 this year. So, it looks like I'm getting that wish. When all the new job stuff started becoming serious, I took a step back and decided that maybe we should postpone trying until we had that all settled. But of course, God's timing isn't the same as my timing, and wouldn't you know it, when we stop trying, it happens anyway! I am very happy about it, as we all are. If you see me around and it doesn't look that way, please believe me when I say that looks are deceiving. I am thrilled to be having another baby, but this one is quite different than my others already. I have had bleeding with this one and though everything is okay from the doctor standpoint, it's still going on and I have to be aware of what I'm doing. I really try hard not to exert any more than I need to, because sometimes that makes it worse. I really covet your prayers for the baby. I know God will take care of all of us, but it is a very stressful time right now.

Speaking of stress... It seems like stress is my new bff that I wish would leave. My job is awful, but I've never really liked it anyway. I have a lot on my plate now, with the move looming ever so close. I do ask that you please not ask me if I'm excited about the move. Yeah, I'm excited because it could mean so many good things for us as a family. However, I do not really relish the fact that I'll be at least 600 miles from my family. I know it's going to be okay, but it's just hard to accept that. I didn't really get to see my family a whole lot, but it was always where I could just hop in the car and drive two hours to go spend the day or something. I'll be alright though. It's D I'm more concerned about. He'll be fine with the move, but he's going to miss his grandparents, that's for sure. It's always worked out where he's been up there for Spring Breaks and a week or two over the summer and maybe every 4 or 5 weeks he'd see them over the weekend. It will be a big adjustment, but we can do it.

The hardest part for me is that hubby won't be here a lot. I'm used to him being gone during the week from when he would travel for work, but this will be considerably different. He's going to leave to head out there the Tuesday or Wednesday before he starts. I have no idea when he'll be able to come back. That's hard to fathom. I mean, he won't ever be here for a whole week after he starts the job. He might make it back over a weekend or two, but that's it. This is where my good buddy stress comes in. Basically, I am left to make sure all the bills for this house are still getting paid, take care of the kids, take care of myself, work full time, and somehow manage to get things packed up and ready for the realtor to take pictures so we can list the house. So, again, if you see me and I don't seem too excited about the baby and the move, read over the previous sentence again and you might grasp why. It's not that I'm not excited. I'm overwhelmed. I know that I have family fairly close by to be of help when I need them, but I feel really alone. My granny is having another health issue and is currently in the hospital again, so I really hate to ask my parents to do anything. They already do so much. They are being stretched thin enough as it is and I don't want to make things harder on them. I'm so picky about the way I like things done that I don't want to ask anyone to help because I know it won't get done the way I want it done, which will make more work for me when I go behind the person and fix it. It sounds so petty, I know, but that's one of my things that gets my OCD running. I need more hours in a day. I need to have time to get things together. Working full time and basically not having any free time until after 7 at night doesn't bode well for accomplishing much. I get up at 5:30 in the morning, so I really should be in bed by 10. That gives me 3 hours. Well, at least one of those hours is for making sure D has been fed and taken care of before he goes to bed at 8. That leaves me 2 hours. That's usually when I try to eat and get some house chores done, like dishes or clothes, and maybe catch a show or two. I sound like I'm having a pity-party and I really don't mean to sound like that. I truly am happy about all the new things happening in our lives. I just wish I was Molly Weasley for a bit and could just wave my wand and have things done.

Ugh.. I hate being in this mindset. I'm letting the devil have a heyday with me. If nothing else, please just pray that we are able to get through all this and that God will be with us. I know He will be, but it never hurts to ask.

So, that's everything that brings us up to date on the happenings within the Donovan family. Until next time...

January Updates!

So, we've made it to January! Yay for that! In all honestly, January was pretty uneventful. We didn't really have anything going on - except for two fabulous events. The NCAA Football National Championship game on January 10. Auburn v. Oregon. I just have two words for that: War Eagle. Auburn defeated Oregon 22-19 to claim their first championship since 1957. It was an awesome game to watch and I was so thrilled to be an Auburn fan! I am always thrilled to be an Auburn fan, but after this season and all they've been through... it was so nice... What was another awesome thing that was of note - last season, Alabama went undefeated, got a heisman winner, and won the national championship. This year, Auburn went undefeated, got a heisman winner (third for the school - Pat Sullivan, Bo Jackson, and Cam Newton), and won the national championship. In my opinion, it pretty much shows that we know our football down here ;)

So, B turned 2 in January. Yeah, I know. 2 years old... it doesn't seem like she should be 2 yet. But here she is, all toddler-ish and terrible twos... not really too bad on the terrible part though :) I was planning to do a princess themed party, but decided against it because she really isn't old enough to enjoy the princess stuff yet. She loves bright colors and butterflies and stuff, so I found the cutest garden themed party stuff at Party City. I decided to make her cake in the shape of a caterpillar. I wanted to use fondant so it would be smooth looking. It was my first time working with fondant, so I asked M (younger bro's GF) for some pointers. She has used it before, so I really needed pointers on how to make it stick to the cake and how to dye it. She gave great tips and I think the cake turned out great!


B's 2nd Birthday Cake












Take two - having fun with editing











B and Memaw













B got this cute little dress from Gingee (MIL) and the minute she pulled it out of the box, she just HAD to put it on. She was literally trying to tear her dress off so she could wear this. I wish I had a better picture of her in it because it was the cutest thing!

December Updates!!

And we continue with the updates...

December was a fun time. It always is for me. I love the Christmas season. My birthday is in December, hubby and I celebrate our anniversary in December, and then Christmas is in December. Who wouldn't love that?! Haha... Anyways, we did not get to spend my birthday together because he was out of town for work (big shocker, I know). We did get to spend our anniversary together, so that was nice. We didn't really do anything though. We never do. My Granny had a health scare on the night before my birthday. It was kind of strange, because a little over 12 years ago, in February 1998, my Granny had a health scare on the night before my mom's birthday. She called my mom that night and said she didn't feel right and that she thought she might need to go to the hospital. My Granny does not say things like that often, so it was enough to get my mom going. She called the ambulance, and then, of course, beat them to Granny's house and thus began a 2 month stay in the hospital, including brain surgery. My Granny had a cerebral aneurysm that had begun to leak. She made a complete recovery from that, so this was a whole new cause for worry. The night before my birthday, my mom went to check on her and found her flat on the floor of her house covered in blood. The end result of the tests from the doctors didn't indicate any stroke or anything. They diagnosed her with SVT (supra ventricular tachycardia). This causes a person's heart rate to go dangerously high, for no good reason. So, the docs think that she had an episode of that, which caused her to faint. When she fainted, she just fell and hit the floor. She had lost consciousness before she made it to the floor, so she couldn't catch herself. She had fractured most of the bones in her face, but was otherwise okay. Since then, she has recovered a good deal, but not completely. She is still very weak and now is having to use her walker and cane, whereas before, she only used them sparingly. So, that was the big event of December.

Christmas was good, as it always is. I got to use decor mesh on my tree this year, so I was really happy about that. I also made a few wreaths out of the decor mesh and gave one to my mom, one to MIL, one to B's babysitter, and one to M's mom. I was really pleased with the way they turned out, so I will definitely make more.


This is the best picture I had of the tree with the decor mesh. I really love the way it turned out.


















This is the box to some ornaments that hubby and I got as a wedding present from his friends. I loved that it was personalized.













I actually got some really good pictures of the kids in front of the tree this year and was able to use them as Christmas card pictures. I was REALLY happy about that!
















Yay for Christmas!
















D on Christmas morning














B on Christmas morning










We went up to my parent's house for Christmas dinner. We had a great time with our family. Then we happened to notice some precipitation coming down. I first thought it was rain, so I dismissed it. Then I looked closer, and was extremely surprised to find that it was SNOWING!!! It wasn't heavy enough to do anything, but there were actual flakes falling from the sky. I was so excited!





We did Bellingrath Gardens for Christmas again this year, but we decided to go after Christmas instead of before. We just didn't have the time to do it before Christmas, like we have in the past. It turned out much better that way. I was able to get some passes early for us, and I bought D's ticket online, so we were able to bypass the line. I recommend that for anyone who wants to go. The only bad thing about Bellingrath at Christmas is the line. If you can buy them online, DO IT!!

Anyway, that's about all I have for December. :)

November Updates!

So November was a pretty fun month for us. We got to go to TWO Auburn games! Yay for that! We went to the Arkansas game in October, and that was great, but we got to go to the Georgia game and to the Iron Bowl. I was pretty happy about all that!

Jordan-Hare Stadium view from Tiger Walk

Bo Jackson was getting an award commemorating the 25th anniversary of his Heisman award. Also in this game, Michael Dyer passed Bo's previous record for rushing yards as a freshman. It was an awesome moment to see Bo there to celebrate it with Dyer.





This was also my first experience with rolling Toomer's Corner. I had wanted to do this for a long time, but was always unable to because of travel or making sure we were back to get the kids. This trip was kid-free (big thanks to my parents!) so we were able to do it. I am even more glad that I did it now that all the mess with the poisoning has happened.






And as for the Iron Bowl... let's just say I am glad that I don't have to go to Tuscaloosa on a regular basis. The town itself is nice and rather quaint, but wowsers, I don't think I've been around so much rudeness... To be fair, I'm not just talking about Bama fans. There were some AU fans trash talking just as much. I hate it, so I only do it to my bestest friends, and that's only in fun. What was awesome for me: Hubby and I were pretty much surrounded by some of the worst Bama fans I've ever seen. They bad mouthed the entire game and touted how great they were. Hubby and I really never said anything because we didn't want to make any of them upset if they had been drinking. We just wanted to watch the game. It was so funny how all of them were all about telling us how Bama was going to give Auburn the first loss and all that jazz. Boy, when I looked around during the fourth quarter.... I should have taken pictures of all their faces. That is definitely one of the reasons I don't like to trash talk. Why would you want to run the risk of having to eat crow?? I don't really get it, but whatever. On to the Iron Bowl pics!

Here we are before the "Tiger Walk" started.

Yeah, we sat this close to the band. I loved it!! I love AUMB already, and to be close enough to hear them over the all the other noise (even the sound system!) at BDS... It was so nice.








This was my picture of the sunset. The picture doesn't really do it justice, but the sky was really more orange-y and there was some dark navy in there, but my camera isn't really professional material. I did what I could :)

And, of course, the all-important score board. I heard that whenever Alabama loses at home, they are pretty quick to turn off the score board, that way there are no pictures. Maybe the thinking is "if they don't see the score, then they won't know that we lost." I don't really know. That's just my opinion :) haha... Whatever the reason, I snapped a picture as soon as I could.

WDE!

October Updates

The last real post was at the end of October, so there isn't a whole lot to update here. I did want to share in the joy that was the Corn Maze though - and a small bit of Halloween.

Hubby's step-dad, G, and his sons thought they might try out a corn maze this past fall. It started in the middle of September and went through Halloween. It was open to the public on weekends and it was open for field trips and stuff on the week days. From what we heard, it was definitely a lot of work to put together, but it was a lot of fun too. Mom and dad came down Halloween weekend and we all drove over on October 30 to do the maze and other fun things before taking the kids to trunk or treat and one of the churches up the road from us. We all had a pretty good time.

D and B are going through the Hay Maze

Mom and the two grandkids

My mom and dad
















D riding in the cow train

This was the only decent picture of them dressed in the Halloween gear. B's costume (which said size 2T-4T) was entirely too short on her and kept riding up, no matter what she did. Serves me right to get the costume from the toy section. I'll stick with the actual Halloween costumes from here on out!

Update Time!

So, I'm apparently a terrible blogger. It has been almost 6 months since I last updated this thing. I mean, 6 months... So, since I'm due for an update, I'll go ahead and get to it. I'm not going to make one ginormous post though, so get ready for multiple postings!