Where Do I Begin?

Where do I begin? It's been an exhausting few days and I have lots to share with you.
My niece, Emily Katherine, was born Wednesday morning at 4:17 AM. Her parents are my brother, Derek, and his girlfriend, Tammy. Tammy had been induced on Monday morning, but didn't go into hard labor until Tuesday afternoon. By 11 PM on Tuesday, they were predicting that Emily would be delivered within an hour. Curtis and I packed up and left our house for the hour and a half drive at 11 PM. We arrived at the hospital around 12:30 AM and my parents met us at the front door. ...No baby, yet... So we all went back to the waiting room. By 3 AM, the doctor had tried everything possible and decided that they should perform a c-section. Emily finally arrived at 4:17 AM. She weighed 5 pounds 15 ounces and was 17 1/2 inches long. I talked to Derek today and they're all doing fine. They're having a hard time getting Emily to nurse, but they're working on that. Tammy is in quite a bit of pain due to the surgery and the length of her labor. Derek sounded tired, but I know he's really excited and very proud. Here is a link to the pictures I took at the hospital...



http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=nos1qyw.3wm0tsrc&x=0&y=r7zx02


Curt and I left to come back to Springfield around 5:30 AM yesterday morning. We got back to the house just in time to get ready for work. I had two friends at work who were counting on me being in full costume, for Halloween, and working all day, so there wasn't any getting out of it!! We dressed as "Cat In The Hat", "Thing 1", and "Thing 2". Any of you who have ever seen "The Cat In The Hat Movie" know that the three HAVE to be together. We had a costume contest at work and I think there were about 20 participants. Joni, Christy, and I won first place!!! WOO-HOO!! I picked Branden and Lauren up from school at 3:30 PM and took them back to work with me, where they changed into their "Thing 1" and "Thing 2" costumes. Our office always has trick-or-treating from 3 PM to 5 PM on Halloween and the employees bring their kids. Our costumes were a big hit!! The kids costumes were homemade. My "Cat In The Hat" costume was purchased, but I ripped the stitching out of the bow-tie and the tail so I could stuff them. It just looked better when some parts of the costume had dimension to them. The kids and I went trick-or-treating in our neighborhood for about an hour and a half last night. The weather was great, especially since we were wearing warm costumes. We opted to walk while trick-or-treating instead of driving, which turned out to be VERY fun. Our costumes were a big hit with everyone we saw last night, too. Lots of people stopped to roll their windows down and tell us how great we looked and how much they liked our costumes. It made me super-duper proud!! Here are some pictures of our day of Halloween fun. My friends, Joni and Christy, are the tall "Things" and Branden and Lauren are the short "things" (OBVIOUSLY!!).



http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=nos1qyw.7lpz3b88&x=0&y=il2vw4


We called Curtis to come pick us up from trick-or-treating around 7 PM. Branden was the one who decided it was time to quit. I think he was tired of me telling him to say "thank you" when candy was given to him. I was exhausted since I hadn't had any sleep since Monday morning so I wasn't disappointed, at all, when they decided we were finished. It wasn't like they didn't have enough candy to last all year! Hhhhmmmmm... I wonder if they'd miss any chocolate if "something" happened to it??? Anyway, we got back to the house and took some pictures. Curtis stuck a couple of pizzas in the oven and I got in the shower. I couldn't wait to get that paint off my face and out of my hair!! Branden and Lauren wanted to stay in their costumes, so they greeted trick-or-treaters at the door for the rest of the evening. I finally got to bed around 8:45 PM and my alarm went off WAY too early this morning. Actually, I think I feel more tired today than I did yesterday! It's almost like the nine hours of sleep I got last night was just a teaser!


I'm taking the day off tomorrow and will be making a trip to Houston to see Emily, Derek, and Tammy. I'll be sure to take my camera and will post more pictures of Emily and her proud family when I get back.


Oh... I almost forgot. I stamped a gift bag for Emily's gifts, earlier this week, and here it is...
I don't know that I'm completely happy with the way it turned out, but everyone else liked it and that's all that matters.


Well... that's what's been happening in my world this week. I hope you're all having a great week and I'll try to post again soon! TTFN!!