Dinner Quiz # 2

Tonight at dinner Noelle took a bite of a vienna sausage, examined it, and then proudly exclaimed:

A. Look at my vienna sausage!

B. I love vienna sausages!

C. Vienna sausages taste so great!

D. It looks like a potty seat!

Quiz

Which of the following comments did our sweet Noelle say during dinner tonight?

A. Dinner smells very good, Mommy.

B. I like the brisket, Mommy.

C. Thank you for a wonderful dinner, Mommy.

D. I have a green bean on my bottom.

Noelle & Luke

Two weekends ago Sarah's college roommate/maid of honor in our wedding came to town for a visit. She and her husband have a son, Luke, who is a year younger than Noelle. They really enjoyed a weekend of playing together. We fed ducks, went to a couple of parks, and spent our evenings playing cards after the kiddos went to bed.

One Month

Well, today has been a little hard for me because it's been a month since Jeffrey was born. I'm so glad that today fell on a Sunday because I got a ton of hugs from friends at church.

We found out some additional news this week about everything that happened. At my follow-up appointment, my doctor ordered a few blood tests, and one of them came back positive for a blood clotting disorder. Now that we have this information, it is most likely that there were blood clots in the placenta that led to Jeffrey's death.

This disorder is something that's not common at all but is sometimes found in women who have had late or repeat miscarriages. It really won't affect my everyday life, but it will make any future pregnancies a little more high-risk. I will be able to take medication during pregnancy to reduce the risk of blood clots developing, and my doctor was very reassuring and positive about the outcome of a future pregnancy. He has dealt with this with several of his patients and has had very good results.

We are so glad to have this information and are very thankful that there is a treatment that works. But at the same time there are a lot of mixed emotions since we didn't know it before we were pregnant. It's hard not to let your mind wonder to "if I had only known, then..." But we are continuing to trust in God, and it makes us so so thankful that Noelle was born without any complications.

God's really cool because He knew that I would need a little cheering up this weekend. His timing is always so good. My roommate from college (who lives in Houston) came for a visit with her husband and son. They were here for the weekend, and we had a blast and laughed a ton! It was so good to be around her.

Thanks for your continued support and prayers.

Bummer

So, the Panthers lost. Big time bummer. I had to go to bed after halftime anyway because of a headache, so at least I didn't miss a really incredible comeback or something.

Another bummer in my day. Noelle threw a huge fit today when we got home from church. (Actually it started at church, but that's a whole different story.) I put her in the corner for a few minutes to try to calm her - and me - down. When I go to get her she had tee-teed EVERYWHERE!!! We just had our carpets cleaned LAST WEEK! I'm afraid she's learned to use tee-tee as a weapon. My life will never be the same.

Delhomme is my Homie

Homie is a weird looking word, huh? Anyway, I (Sarah) promised to write a few days ago about why I am a Carolina Panthers fan. (Delhomme is their quarterback, by the way.) In honor of their playoff game, which will kickoff in just over an hour, I'll tell you why.

Here's my sports fan history:
--High school: I was in the marching band and attended 40 football games. We only won 2. Seriously. I had no idea the rules of the game, and spent the time talking to my friends instead of watching anything. But with a 2-38 record, would you really watch the game, either? I also had to work at Texas Stadium as a fund raiser for band, which started my life-long hatred of the Cowboys. (Sorry...I know that will disappoint many of my readers.) :-)

--College: At A&M, I attended all the home football games. At that point in the school's history our team was pretty good. I learned most of the rules of football, but didn't have a very long attention span. I could pay attention for about 15 minutes and then ended up talking to my friends.

--Post college: I taught in a Texas high school. Those of you familiar with this part of the country will understand that many times it seems that athletics takes precedence over academics. So I became bitter about football for a while.

--After I quit teaching: I started watching sports with Chris. I mean, he really loves it and so I was trying to be a supportive wife. I started to like football and understand most of the rules. (Unfortunately for his sake, though, I really hate basketball to this day.) I decided it would be much more fun if I picked a team to root for.

So, how in the world did I pick the Panthers? Well, it's easy. First of all, I chose any other team besides the Cowboys. Then, I thought, "Hey, the Panthers. That's a pretty cool mascot. Their colors are cool, too. Plus, I bet North Carolina is a really pretty place. I'll choose them." Deep, huh?

I've been following them for probably 4 years or so. They are never on TV here, though, so it's a bummer. (Another reason I am really bitter about the Cowboys...they are ALWAYS on TV. Except TODAY, hehe!)

So that's the story. If you don't know who to cheer for tonight, you can cheer for the Panthers on my behalf!

Attention All Phlebotomists!

Today I (Sarah) had a check up which included getting my blood drawn. My experience today was totally fine, but I recently had one that was not my favorite, and I realized I never wrote about it on our blog. Hopefully, it'll be good for a laugh.

Things NOT to say when you are drawing blood:
1) Why did everyone leave me alone today? (This was said a little under her breath...not reassuring)
2) I've only been doing this for a couple of weeks.
3) OK, maybe the next arm will be a little better.
4) Hmmm, the area in your arm around where the needle was is a little hard. I wonder if it's supposed to do that. I'll have to ask my coworkers later about that.
5) I have drawn blood on a 4 year old by myself! (Good for you!)

Seriously, it makes it sound like my experience was horrible and it wasn't, but those things seriously came out of her mouth. I didn't faint or throw up or anything, I just had 2 sore arms for a couple of days. :-) I also went at 4:45 on Halloween, which was a Friday, so I'm thinking that's why the top people weren't there.

OK, I also want to just update you all on how we're doing. I can honestly say that I think we're doing well, considering the circumstances. I still cry a ton, but I cry really easily on a normal day. If you see me crying in the months to come, know that I really am OK, that's just how I am. God has really been so good to guard our hearts from being bitter, angry, jealous, and many other emotions...we are mainly just really sad.

My check-up today was also really positive. Everything is fine and our doctor really expects us to have a healthy pregnancy in the future. Although there is no way to know for sure, his best guess is that Jeffrey had a chromosomal abnormality, and it's not something that would be likely to happen again. He also was very reassuring and said that my next pregnancy will be very closely monitored...not really because they can change much early on, but just for my own peace of mind. I thought today would be really hard, with me going to the doctor. Yesterday was supposed to be our appointment to have our halfway sonogram, and instead I'm having a follow-up for everything. But honestly, I left feeling very positive and it was a good day.

Thank you all for your continued support and prayers. They have meant so much. I know that God is answering so many prayers for us. We have been so encouraged and have felt so loved these past few weeks.

I thought I'd also leave you with a quote-of-the-day from Noelle. Today, while eating cheerios she said, "I have to eat all the colors of the alphabet." Maybe we're trying to teach her too many things at the same time. :-)

NOLA

On our first night in New Orleans, we had dinner at NOLA, one of Emeril’s 3 local restaurants. The food was very fancy and really delicious. We had two waiters. Travis was our main waiter, and he had an assistant, Mike. Here’s a little info on Travis:

Travis lives in Meraux, about 12 miles east of New Orleans. He used to live in Canyon Lake, TX, and when he learned that we were from west TX, he said that he likes desert scenery. He and his wife have a 20-month-old son, T.J. His wife is obsessive and calls home to check on T.J. anytime they go out to dinner. T.J. is a late talker, but Travis said that he knows once T.J. starts talking he won’t stop. Travis did a wonderful job explaining the menu to us, complete with multiple yummy noise sound effects when he came to a dish that was a personal favorite. Once we finally made our selections, he said “niiiiiiice” to each one. In addition to menu recommendations, he advised us to go to Frenchman Street after dinner. He said that it is much calmer than Bourbon Street, is for the mature crowd, and where many of the locals go. However, he did note that there are a couple of bars on that street where we could “get wild” if we wanted to. (Since we had the earliest reservation possible and were the only people in the restaurant not drinking wine, we think he might have been a little slow on the up-take.) Finally, the most useful information he gave us was his strong recommendation not to walk to wherever we were heading but instead take a taxi. He commented that he there had been several robberies in the area lately and one of the other waiters was recently shot a couple of blocks from the restaurant. We still ended up walking.

So, why did we tell you all this about Travis? He volunteered all of this information without us asking him a single question. He even took this picture of himself before taking pictures of us as we had requested.

Don't get the wrong idea. We had great service, and the food was wonderful. All in all, we had a great time. We just thought our experience with our waiter was a bit unique.