Happy Birthday, Nicholas!

Nicholas' 5th Birthday was last week. Wow! Where does the time go?? He celebrated with a party at Chuck E Cheese last weekend then Paul and I took him to lunch on his actual birthday. When I told him he could go wherever he wanted, he chose McDonalds (but with the stipulation that we eat in the play area!). He is such a sweetheart! Of all my kids, he is definitely the most laid back - which is ironic since he was the most difficult pregnancy and delivery. While at lunch, Paul and I reminincsed about what was going on at that exact time five years ago (Nicholas was born at 1:17pm). The main thing I remember was thinking the pain was unbearable and that he either needed to come out or I needed to die! My epidural did not work and he came out at lightning speed (17 minutes and one push)! But it was all so worth it. Nicholas came along at a time in my life that was the pit of darkness. I found out I was unexpectantly pregnant with him just three months after my mom died. God knew what he was doing when he gave me this ray of sunshine. Because of the physical effects of the grief I was going through, I had a really rough pregnancy. I had no immune system the first half of my pregnancy and ended up hospitalized a week before Christmas with dehydration and contractions. I finally past a milestone around 25 weeks and began to feel better. However, at 32 weeks I went into pre-term labor and was put on bedrest while in and out of the hospital the rest of my pregnancy. Finally, at 39 weeks I developed preeclampsia and had to be induced to avoid a stroke. I think one of the most memorable moments from that time was one night when I was 34 or 35 weeks. Former Dallas Cowboy Randy White was at our house picking up some business cards that Paul had done for him. They were in his office chatting and I knew Paul was in heaven as he is such a big fan. Meanwhile, I'm in the family room having big time contractions 5-6 minutes apart! I called my dad and asked him to come up and stay with the older two. As soon as Randy left, my dad shows up to Paul's surprise. I told him to hurry and get in the car because we were headed to the hospital again. Luckily, each time they were able to stop my contractions and stabilize me so that I could go home and remain on bedrest there.

Now for a little about Nicholas these days. He had a Star Wars party (which is his newest craze). When we went to pick out his cake, he chose a Scooby Doo cake. I tried to explain that all his decorations were Star Wars that he had picked out, but he insisted on the Scooby Doo. His newest thing is to give me a thumbs up and for me to do it back to him. He loves doing this especially during his soccer games. The problem is he often does it to me after he's just pushed another kid down or kicked the ball the wrong direction! His other thing is to tell me he "very, very, very, very,.... loves me. I then say it back to him and it turns into a game to see who can say the most "very's". We have always called him our Campbell soup kid, because he has the face of the Campbell soup boy. He is the epitome of childhood innocense. He almost always has a smile on his face and just wants to make us happy. More than anything he just wants to be near us. Everyone needs a Nicholas in their lives!!

Happy Birthday, my Nicho-licko-lous!!

Brotherly Love ???

Here's the transcript of a conversation me and Nicholas had on the way to soccer practice tonight:

Nicholas: Can you be anything you want to be in Heaven?
Me: What do you mean?
Nicholas: When I get to Heaven, I'm going to ask God to turn me into a chicken.
Me: Why?
Nicholas: Because if I'm a chicken then Jacob won't recognize me and he won't be able to hit me, but I can sneak up on him without him knowing and then I can hit him.

The Wind Huffed and it Puffed...

...and it (almost) blew our house down! Night before last we woke up to the sound (or lack of) that occurs when your electricity goes out. As I sat up in bed, I heard an eerie whistling sound followed almost immediately by the sound of 87mph winds pummeling our house. We could feel the vibration of the house shaking and the roof trying to come off. I screamed "I think it's a tornado!" as we both jumped out of bed. By this time, the older three boys had already woken up so I yelled up to them to run down stairs and get under the stairs while I ran up to get Noah out of his crib. The adrenaline kicked in and I made it up the stairs and back down by the time the others got down and wasn't even out of breath! (Although I'm definitely feeling it now!) Since we had no power and had no way of finding out what was happening and not knowing if more was coming, I called my dad from my cell phone. Luckily he had power and was able to look at the radar on tv and let us know when the worst was over. After it was over, our power was still out so we let the kids sleep in our room, but I think we were all too wound up to get much sleep. We didn't realize how bad the destruction was until the morning when we could venture out. Praise God our house was mostly spared other than some tree limbs and roof shingles, but several of our neighbors were not as fortunate. A few houses had their chimneys knocked off their roofs, numerous fences were destroyed, and several 50+ year old trees were snapped in two like toothpicks. One street over from us, just about every tree was knocked over. There are also some electric and telephone poles south of our subdivision that were knocked over. Of course, while we were under the stairs Andrew said, "I hope our trampoline isn't blown away." To which I replied, "I hope our roof isn't blown away!"

My brother in Allen also lost his chimney along with their fence and a tree. My dad's plane was heavily damaged at the McKinney Airport. As I'm writing this, there was a story on the news confirming that there was a tornado mixed in with the straight line winds.

I've had several people ask if we heard the tornado sirens and no, we did not. The only way to hear them from our house is if everything is completely silent (which is usually not the case in a storm)! I think we will definitely be buying a battery powered weather radio to have for the future. All I can say is I am glad the forecast is for sunny weather for the next several days!