Happy Birthday Sweet Angel

Three years ago...
Two years ago...
Last year....

Our little princess on her 3rd birthday!
This was one of her birthday presents she got to open this morning. The gown came with earrings and a crown. Of course I had to buy her the matching shoes as well. I should also note....we couldn't take her out of the dress so she wore it to church. What?

Three years ago today my sweet angel was born. Copeland Arilia Tillery blessed the world with her presence at 11:19am on 4-6-05 (Wednesday). It breaks my heart to know she is three years old, but it makes me so happy to know God blessed us with her. She is the most precious and special girl in the world.

Washable...yeah right

SO PROUD of herself!
Picasso?
Okay...so I need to send an ugly email to Crayola. These makers are supposed to be washable, but they are not. It says so right on their packaging---false advertising! Copeland LOVES to draw on anything other than paper....especially her delicate, pasty white skin. The kicker is that I get so tickled looking at her "artwork" that I can't reprimand her! :)

Easter

The loot!
Like mother like daughter!
I bought these custom made overalls off of EBay specifically for Easter (more specifically for the Easter Egg Hunt in Philadelphia). Since Cope was sick the hunt was out of the question, but I was determined she was going to wear them at least once! You can look at her eyes and tell she doesn't feel well.

Our nights have been very sleepless lately. We've all been getting about 5 hour max and are all a little delirious. Yesterday morning when Copeland woke up Josh and I told her the Easter Bunny had been here. She looked at me and said, "he's like Santa". I knew what she meant, but Josh tried to make her understand that is was the Easter Bunny by saying "he's the one you've been seeing at the mall". BIG MISTAKE! Copeland is terrified of the huge, six-foot bunny at the mall. She thought he was still in the living room so she refused to go in at first. I had to convince her that he wasn't there. It was pretty funny.

Beautiful Baby Girl

Precious! I took these pics last Sunday at church in the nurser. I use the term "nursery" loosely because it's basically Copeland's room. Our church has a grand total of about 20 people. Copeland is the youngest. The next youngest is the preacher's daughter who is 12. Yeah...it's Copeland's room.

Tool Time

Copeland and Daddy "working" on the teddy bear carrier. Notice the tools?
Copeland was so proud of herself. Before Josh went in her room to "help" her she had already managed to take the handle off the carrier by herself. That is most certainly her Daddy in her! Of course this pic is a few days before the flu set in.

Sick...Again...No, I'm not kidding

Okay, so no pictures (again) this time. I have to report that today (March 21, 2008) my precious baby girl was swabbed positive for the flu. No. I'm not kidding. It's the first day of spring and Copeland has the flu. It's Easter weekend and Copeland has the flu. Let me tell you the story. I picked her up from daycare yesterday and she was fine. Thirty minutes later when we got home I noticed she was warm. I took her temp and it was 102.7. Okay, no big deal. Tylenol is our friend. It came down to about 100.3 before bedtime. However, that is when the real fun began. At midnight her temp was 105. More Tylenol, juice and a tepid bath. It came down to about 103. At 7:00am her temp was 105.9! Are you joking you may ask, but no I am not. Off to the doctor. We get to the MD's office at 8:15am. By 9:30am the MD still hasn't come in the room. I took her temp again because her cheeks were so red (yes, I had the thermometer in my purse..what?) and it was 106.1!!!! Normally I don't freak out about temps, but come on...106.1!!! I shot out of the room and asked for some Tylenol or Motrin from the nurses...guess what...the pediatric clinic had ZERO of either! Thankfully, Dr. Maranto came right in. After a good, thorough exam he decided to swab for the flu because "She has that look". It was very positive. Now as I'm typing this she is asleep on her Dora mat in the living room. Dear Lord my baby needs a break..and so do Josh and I. Keep us in your prayers please...again. Have a Happy Easter and remember why we celebrate the day. He is Risen! Love you all.

Answered Prayer

I just wanted to type a quick little note to let my loved ones know that my mammogram and ultrasound were both okay! Those are two answered prayers! To catch everyone up, yesterday I found a knot in my chest. After a mammo and u/s, Dr. Pupa told me that everything was okay. She, and Dr. Whitehead, think I have costochondritis (inflammation and swelling of the cartilage that joins the ribs bones to the sternum). This area is slightly sore and swollen, but should be fine in a week or two. Thank you all for the prayers! I love you all.

New layout

What do y'all think of my new layout? Do you love it or do you love it?! See. I can do this. One of these days I'm going to figure out how Amber got those cute pictures at the top of her blog. Baby steps though. I hope everyone is doing well. Copeland is sick...again. This time we are battling diarrhea (or die-rah-rear...as Copeland says) and vomiting. This is day three of the ordeal. Thankfully the vomiting only lasted one night. Seriously though...how much diarrhea can a 2..almost 3..year-old have? This has got to be some kind of record.

P.S. Turn up the volume to hear my NEW playlist. I'm so cool.

I blame myself....

As I said...I blame myself. I broke a Cardinal Rule. I handed my toddler a bowl of chocolate pudding...and I walked away. Need I say more?
Pudding finger paint...she may be on to something here.
Notice the delicate swooshes and lines?
What she said..."I didn't make a mess Mommy". What she meant..."Look at this HUGE mess I made for you to clean up Mommy...and you're welcome". Right after this picture was taken Copeland had a date with Mr. Bathtub.

Beautiful

Look at the beautiful flowers my precious darlings (Josh and Copeland) picked for me! Aren't they gorgeous? Josh and Cope found them growing outside...the beginning of March....the next day the high was 50. I feel as though we saved them! :) Notice the pic of me and Josh to the right? That was the night we got engaged! May 10, 2003. It was a great night. I love you honey!

A different prayer request.....

Last time I posted I asked for prayer for Wesley Harrison and his wife Donna. Well, it really hurts my heart to report that Wesley passed away last Wednesday at the age of 55. My request now is that you all pray for Donna, Kim, and Andy. They truly are a special family and I love them dearly. There were tons of people who visited the funeral home, and many at the funeral. I think Donna took comfort knowing that Wesley had touched so many people's lives. Please pray for comfort for Donna and that her heart will mend in time. I know she loved Wesley dearly and sho took amazing care of him...right until the very end. My prayers are with the whole Harrison family and I hope your's are also.

Prayer Request

I know everyone likes to look at the precious pictures of my little angel, but this time I have a favor to ask. Please pray for Copeland's Poppi---Wesley Harrison. Wesley is Donna's husband. Donna was Copeland's babysitter/other grandmother from age 3 months until about 5 months ago. Wesley has lung cancer and Saturday was placed on the ventilator in ICU at Anderson Hospital. He is a great man, but he is truly blessed with the most loving and caring wife. Donna and Wesley (and their family) are like members of my family. Please pray for Wesley to overcome this current obstacle and pray for strength and peace for Donna. Thanks so much! Love you all.

Here we go again.....

Sweet baby girl sleeping off her fever...
but not before she tried to give herself a Mike Tyson-esque face tattoo! :)

I don't know about where everyone else lives. but here in east central Mississippi and west central Alabama the flu has hit...big time. Last week on one day there was a reported almost 300 stduents out from the Lauderdale school system. My clinic has seen tons of it too. We finally got over the whole stomach bug and now here we go again. Copeland woke up yesterday morning with a dry, hacky cough, but that was all. We spent the day at the mall with my family. Side-note: Congratualtions to my nephew, Josh, who won first place in his age division and third place over-all at the Pine Box Derby car race (Boy Scouts). At the mall I noticed Copeland felt a little warm. When we got home her temp was 100.1. I gave her liquid Prednisone/Triaminic Night Time Cold and Cough/Mortin before she went to bed. However, through the night I continued to wake up to check one her....remember...mother + nurse = CRAZY! Her temp shot up to 104.6! This morning it is at 103.6. So off we will go again to the doctor in the morning. Fun times.

Happy Birhday to me...sort of....

Well...I turned to big 2-9...sad. However, my wonderful husband made sure my evening was great when I got home from work on Tuesday. He made me a steak dinner and he even bought cake! Above is Copeland putting in the incredibly high number of candles. Fast forward about two hours...all was calm at the house and then Cope said her tummy was hurting. She says that all the time so we really didn't pay much attention to it. Well..she got my attention when she was sitting in my lap and started vomiting! Fun times! While Copeland and I took a bath to get cleaned up, poor Josh had to clean up the computer room. He even managed to clean up the mess without vomiting himself! Yea!
I kept Cope home with me on Wednesday, but no more vomiting just diarrhea. Don't you just love reading this?! Hey...I'm a nurse.... So I decided she could go back to school today because she hadn't vomited anymore and her diarrhea had stopped. Well, Copeland had other plans. We got about halfway to the interstate and Copeland started vomiting..again...in the car. So here is a picture of my sick little princess taking a nap. Pray that this will pass fast because I talked to one of the nurses at the Peds clinic and she said yesterday she had talked to a mother whose child had it on and off for ONE WEEK!

Snow Day

This was the backyard at about 7:30 am.
This was the front yard about 7:30am.
Notice the difference?

OK...so it snowed for the first time in like seven years or something. We here in the great area of York, AL, got about three inches. However, Copeland did not really get to "enjoy" the snow because we had my nephew's birthday party to go to. (Happy --belated--Birthday Joshua!). It was also my mother-in-law's birthday, so that evening we went to her house. Josh was sick and I didn't care a thing in the world about going out in the snow to play...resulting in Copeland getting sick...no thank you. It was beautiful though. On the way to my nephew's birthday party in Meridian, I had to drive 40 mph on the interstate! Before I got half way to Meridian I had already seen three cars in the ditch because they were driving too fast in the snow. Do these people not realize that we aren't accustomed to snow?! Did they think the MS road system was equivalent to the road systems in the north? Idiots.

I was tagged...

Okay, so Amber tagged me to post seven random items about myself. There are several instructions regarding this, but I don't have time to figure out how to link to Amber's page and she tagged the only other person I know who has a blog (Sparks), so I'll just answer the seven questions.

1. I was engaged twice! True story...first I was engaged to a guy named John Adams in Richmond, KY. It didn't work out ( packed up my things in KY and moved home because he yelled at me...and I had family issues at the time) obviously!
2. When I moved home from KY, two months later Josh and I were set up on a blind date by my cousin. We have been together ever since---almost six years now.
3. I am not really a phone person. I love to email, but I don't like talking on the phone. Weird huh?
4. Copeland was an accident. Some sage advice for women not wanting to have a child right now...don't take antibiotics while on the pill....they cancel each other out! :)
5. I used to swear that I would not be a nurse. My mother is a nurse so it's in my blood, but I always said I would never be a nurse "because they are over-worked and under-paid". It's still true, but I love being a nurse!
6. I am working on my third college degree. I have a BA in Communication (double major in public relations and broadcasting with a minor in marketing) from MS State, and AD in Nursing from Meridian CC, and I'm working on my BSN from the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. I will graduate in December with my BSN. Ultimately I will have four or more degrees when I am FINALLY done with school.
7. I was one of the last of my high school friends to have a baby, but the first of my college friends! Now all of my high school friends either have baby number two or are expecting it...so my college friends need to pony up! No I'm not expecting.

Random Pictures

Copeland hunting "big game" at home. She found Josh's hunting clothes and proceeded to dress herself. That whole dressing herself thing is tons of fun....can you feel the sarcasm?!

Now here are a couple of really funny pics of my "special child". She thinks this look is hilarious!!! My favorite time she does this is when we are out in public..like the grocery store. It's a riot! Once again....can you feel the sarcasm?! :)

Happy Birthday Matthew

On December 19 my youngest nephew, Matthew, turned five! I can't believe he's that old. I vividly remember being at the hospital when he was born. There was a HUGE tornado that touched down in Newton, so the nurses were being held over. Stacy was freaking out because she thought she wasn't going to have a nurse to help deliver Matthew. I laugh now because I was there, my mother was there, and Stacy's brother-in-law (Mike Purvis, MD) was there! ONE of us could have caught that baby. Anyway...Matthew's growing up...Josh is about the be seven and Copeland will be 3 in a few months! It is all way too fast, but so much fun to be a part of.