Blessed

I am sure many of you are wondering how in the world the title of my blog can be blessed. Honestly, I myself, wonder how in the world I can feel blessed right now with all I have going on. I have a semi minor problem with the fact that I am 22 weeks pregnant with no name for my son to a huge, major, terrible problem finding out my 2 year old daughter has a brain tumor. So, please allow me to explain. First of all, I feel blessed that we even FOUND the tumor as soon as we did. I can see God's hands ALL OVER the situation. The fact that the ER pedi thought we should do a CT.  The fact that we LEFT the ER and then Nick made me come back. Lastly, the fact that they reccommended an MRI, when instead they could have contributed the results to a very busy 2 year old who doesn't like to be held down and doesn't like to be away from her Mommy. I also feel the neurosurgeon is a blessing from God. I don't know where she is from, whether she moved back to Shreveport after med school or she just "happened" to be here, but I like to think that she is here specifically for us. To operate on MY child if that is the plan God has for us. She is here with one of the best neurosurgeons in the business. She did her residency at St. Jude for goodness sakes!! How better prepared can she be?! I have to say, as much as I am glad she is here, I really, really believe and pray that she will be out of a job when it comes to operating on my baby girl.  I feel blessed from all the prayers, love and overwhelming support we have received from family, friends and people who don't even know us! To know that people in Liberia and other countries are praying for us!! What a blessing! Shayleigh has made an impact on those around us, but is also making an impact on others around the world! What a testimony it will be to be COMPLETELY HEALED!! Hopefully others will hear of her and will realize God STILL DOES MIRACLES! Woudn't it be amazing if people came to Jesus because of my little 2 year old girl?!?! I also feel blessed that apparently many have been praying for peace for Nick and I. I have NEVER been so calm in my ENTIRE LIFE!! I am a VERY anxious person. I worry about EVERYTHING- significant and insignificant....EVERYTHING. Yet, I have a peace. I am a pessimistic person. I have been optimistic. I have had a few "normal" times, but for the most part I have been super calm. Just handling it. I can ONLY attribute it to the prayers! I feel blessed that Nick and I decided to become more involved in church. I needed a few years away from church after going through a church split and drama that unfortunately my parents tried to shield me from, but I saw anyway. Nick and I now have such a wonderful church family. We know them and they know us and we can all love on one another. I am so grateful for that! I also feel blessed that we started studying James in Sunday School. James, a book that Nick was one to suggest. I keep remembering the verse we learned at the beginning of our study "Consider it pure joy, when you face trials of many kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith develops perserverance. Perserverance must finish it's work so that you may be mature and complete lacking nothing. (James 1:2-4)."  I have quoted that verse at least a million times since last Tuesday. I also feel blessed because I am learning to trust. I am learning what faith really is. I am learning to give it all to God. I love my little girl. I want the best for her. It kills me that I can't fix her problem, but I know the Man who can and I am trusting and believing that he will hear our cries and heal our little girl! I was brought up in church. I have always known about God, but never before have I trusted him like I am now! I have always been real unsure about showing faith. I didn't want to have people look at me and be like "well, she says she is a Christian, but she is doing such and such." Now, I have to be the one who is strong. The one who tells others she is going to be fine. God is going to heal her! And I have to BELIEVE it!! God knows I want to take over and fix it all, I think that is human nature, but that isn't what God wants. I know that God is trying to teach us something  by allowing us to go through this awful time. I am also blessed by an amazing husband. He has been a rock! He has been sweet and uplifting. I am also blessed with my little girl. The one who many are praying for. She is such a blessing to Nick and I! She makes us laugh. Her smile lights up a room. Her sweetness is just precious. She has been such a trooper. Children are so intuitive, and she knows something is going on, but she is more worried about taking care of mommy and daddy. She has been giving us hugs and kisses and just been a little cuddle bug. I am also blessed with an amazing family. My mom was able to come up and spend a few days with us after we came home. God bless her. She is the one who reminded us that we need to be praying for a miracle because God can do it!! I could go on and on about the other blessings, but honestly I am worn out from a busy day. We have NOT stopped!! I have been keeping up with my blog as a therapeutic release for me, and I was laying in bed about to take a nap when I felt like I needed to get out of bed and type up this blog. I hope that it helps someone. I hope that it gives comfort to someone. Please continue to pray for a miracle for our Shayleigh. Please continue to pray for us as we have a busy week next week. Please continue to pray for peace for our family. Thank you.

Until next time,

Nikki

Thanks & News

Thank you guys for all the prayers, texts, messages and comments!! Nick and I have been overwhelmed with amazing love, support and prayers! In the midst of the greatest trial of our lives, we feel so blessed. I want to start off saying that Nick and I continue to pray for a miracle. We are praying specifically that when we go in for an MRI before surgery, that they are completely unable to find ANYTHING! And everyone is completely baffled and the ONLY explanation will be God!! What an amazing testimony for our family! Shayleigh is such a blessing to us. Many of you don't know what an amazing little girl she is. Ya'll have never met her or heard her sing. Yet, many of you join with us praying for a miracle for our little angel. That is soooo amazing to me!! With that being said, please continue to pray for a miracle and complete healing!

Since many of you don't know Shayleigh I would just like to share a few little things about her so that you will feel like you really know her. She is a little red headed firecracker! We can't go anywhere without someone stopping us to talk to her. She literally stops people in their tracks! She is super friendly. She loves to sing. Her favorite songs are Amazing Grace, The old rugged cross, twinkle twinkle, jingle bells and Jesus loves me. She can sing them all! She loves to dance and Nick and I are going to have to lock her up when she gets older because she likes to shake it. She is super smart and has been talking in sentences since about 16 months. She is very intuitive. After we found out the news, I started crying and she said "Take a deep breath Mommy. It is going to be ok, Mommy."  And then she started singing Jesus Loves Me. She is super sweet and so very smart. She loves to read! She is such a mommy & she likes to mommy everyone. She is also bossy (she gets that from her daddy-haha). She loves babies and she will stop whatever she is doing to kiss on them. She is very busy and hardly ever stops. She is always moving. She loves to run. She also likes to play outside, swing and take wagon rides. I could go on and on,but I will quit now. HAHA. She probably sounds like every other 2 year old to those of yall with kids, but to us..she is soooooo super duper special!! She has been such a blessing to our family!!

Shayleigh has no idea what is going on. I am sure she knows something is going on because she is sooo super smart, but I Nick and I decided to keep everything as normal as possible. Her life could potentially change overnight, but we are keeping it as normal as possible up until that point. We do not plan on altering any of our plans. The only changes we are making is that we are having Christmas this Monday. This doesn't mean we don't believe that a miracle will happen, we just really wanna have something to celebrate after the news from this past week. She told us the other day "I know Santa Clause loves little boys and girls, but I just don't love Santa Claus." Maybe after she gets her gifts she will feel different. lol.

Now, lets get down to the nitty gritty. If it is needed, we have scheduled surgery for next Friday December 21 at LSU. We were offered 4 dates. 2 before Christmas and 2 after. The neurosurgeon told us that we could wait until after Christmas, but Nick and I won't be able to enjoy Christmas anyway so we might as well go ahead and get it taken care of.  The first date was next Tuesday. Nick and I felt that was way to quick and we needed to get things in order. The other dates we were given were all at LSU. We felt that LSU would be a great place for her because we know they see this more often. Plus, Nick's cousin works at LSU and she will make sure that everything is taken care of. She has already done a ton of research for us and helped us out tremendously. We will be meeting with the surgeon again on Wednesday. We are bringing our parents & Nick's cousin (who has been super amazing through this) will be coming as well. I have been in touch with a child life specialist at LSU and I am awaiting a call back from her to set up a meeting. The child life specialist will take her around the hospital and show her around and I don't really know what else they will do. Basically, whether or not we have the surgery it won't hurt her to be brought around a hospital.

I believe in a miracle. I really do, but I also believe that if a miracle isn't in God's plan we need to be prepared. I don't know if that is the correct way to go about it, but it really helps keep me calm. I am a planner and I like to have things in order.

Many of you might be wondering how I am doing. And even if you are not, I am about to tell you. lol. (as if this blog isn't long enough) I am doing suprisingly well. I honestly spend so much time NOT thinking about it so I don't break down in front of her that I feel like I am a robot. I have been suprisingly calm. That alone scares me because I am a very anxious person. I haven't been completely optimistic, but I am not as pessimistic as I normally am. It is so weird. The only thing I can attribute this too is all the prayers!! Again, I can't thank you guys enough for that!!  I know these posts are super long, but I want to keep people updated. Plus, it has been therapuetic for me to put my feelings into words.

Until next time,

Nikki

Picking out a pumpkin at the pumpkin patch

Nick, Shayleigh and me

The cutest little pumpkin ever!!

The LA state fair

Terrible, no good, very bad news

This is a post I NEVER, EVER thought I would be writing. Yet, here I sit struggling to put everything into words.  As many of you know, Nick and I received devastating news earlier this week about our sweet baby girl Shayleigh. I plan to use this blog to keep people updated on everything that is going on. I am going to go ahead and start at the beginning. Late Monday afternoon Shayleigh was sitting in her booster chair at the kitchen table playing with her new favorite toy- playdoh.  I was right by her, but had my back turned unloading the dishwasher. The next thing I know I hear a thump and I jump around and she was laying on the floor. I ran over and picked her up. She was stunned. She cried, but she never shed a tear. After that she wanted me to carry her and she didn't want to walk. Then she wanted to snuggle and kept saying "Mommy I want to go night night. Mommy I want to rest." That is not something she normally does.  She likes to snuggle, but she NEVER wants to rest in the middle of the day. When Nick got home about 30 minutes to 1 hour later I told him. I made him look at her pupils because I thought they didn't look right (and I wanted to make sure I wasn't paranoid). He didn't think they looked right either. So, we loaded up and headed to the pediatric ER. I work at the same hospital in the adult ER. Thank goodness or we might still be waiting. I actually became the person I NEVER wanted to become. I wouldn't touch the note pad or pen to sign in and I walked straight to the back and completely bypassed triage. (I HATE when people do that). But, the Peds ER was AMAZING!! I can't say enough good things about them!! Anyway, the Dr came in and said we could do a CT scan. He never said anything about her pupils, but I just kept telling him she wasn't acting right. Shayleigh was acting really clingy and quiet (which is totally abnormal for her). I really didn't want a CT and eventually decided not to do it because Shayleigh perked up while we were waiting for the CT tech. Also, the CT tech that did CTs on kids wasn't coming in until 9 and we didn't want to wait for 1 1/2 hours for a test while our child was running around the room & acting completely normal. Literally running around the room. And beating up her daddy with a ballon one of the staff had given her from a party earlier that day. So, the dr came back in and told us to come back if she started vomiting or acting really funny. We loaded up in the car and drove to chick-fil-a for dinner. We sat down and Shayleigh proceeded to projectile vomit ALL OVER ME, her daddys pants and shoes and the booth. Nick said "We are going back to the Emergency room."  I was still unsure about going back, but Nick was adamant so we went back.  The Dr came in and told us "lets go ahead and get a CT scan." I still didn't want to, but I didn't feel like I had much of a choice since Nick wanted one. Since I am pregnant, I had to wait in the hallway while they did the CT. Nick went in the room with her and did an AMAZING job!! Unfortunately, it is really hard to get a CT on a really busy 2 year old. The doctor came in and told us that they saw something on it, but they weren't sure if it was due to her movement or if there was something wrong. So, he suggested either another CT or admission to the pedi floor for an MRI that next morning. Nick and I decided on the CT. The second CT didn't go any better so we were admitted for an MRI. She had her MRI that morning at about 0800. She had to be sedated and we were sent back to the room to wait. We were called down to recovery after the procedure. We waited forever for the results. The nurse told me the radiologist had a question and had contacted a pediatric specialist. Then she got the results and said we would wait on the pediatrician who was headed over to talk to us. The pediatrician who came in wasn't my regular pediatrician, but she was amazing. She told us that they found a mass on her brain & that they thought it was an astrocytoma. She said she had contacted a neurosurgeon and she would be coming to talk to us. She gave us worse case scenario, which I really appreciate. I don't want it sugar coated. I want the toughest stuff first. The neurosurgeon came about 30-40 minutes later and showed us the CT results. We saw the tumor. It was pretty obvious (once she pointed landmarks out of course- lol). Shayleigh has a tumor, they believe it is an astrocytoma, the size of a ping pong ball on her cerebellum. This is a very common pediatric brain tumor. The neurosurgeon told us she thinks it is separated enough from the brain stem that she can go in and get it all without having to mess with her brain stem. She explained the surgery to us and patiently answered all of our questions. Unfortunately, she wasn't able to tell us for sure that the tumor is an astrocytoma or if it is benign or malignant. She won't be able to confirm any of that until surgery. She will send off a piece of whatever she gets to the lab at the facility we choose and to St.Judes for further testing which will take approximately 2-3 days. She told us that if she gets in surgery and the tumor is too big or too advanced or will cause more damage than she originally thought she will only take out what she can with minimal amount of damage and close her up and then we will determine what to do from there. Nick and I left the meeting feeling overwhelmed, but very pleased with the neurosurgeon and the explanation she had given us. We feel like EVERYTHING from finding the tumor to the neurosurgeon is an amazing act of God! I am still shocked that the Dr even CONSIDERED ordering a CT on a child who didn't even have a very big fall. It is a blessing this was found out AT ALL this early! I will continue to update, but please continue to pray for us as we begin to make decisions.

Vacation.

Nick and I really aren't "beach" people (we didn't even go to a beach on our honeymoon like everyone else I know), but we went to the beach again this year.  It is "work" for Nick, but we also use it as an opportunity for a family vacation.  Before you start feeling sorry for "poor Nick" it isn't really "work".  Nick goes to "class" from 8-12 M-W.  At class, he gets food, drinks and cool freebies (this year he had a bag full).  So, while he went to class Shayleigh and Mommy had fun. We went swimming and hung around the condo waiting for Nick to get out of class so we could go to the beach. (I'm not brave enough to try the beach with a fair skinned toddler and all the supplies needed to make sure she doesn't get burned...) Shayleigh LOVES the water. She is absolutely fearless when it comes to water (which is scary) and has been since the first day she was put in the pool. I bought her a puddle jumper this year and taught her to kick and now she can swim back and forth to mommy and daddy. SUPER cute!  Unlike her parents, she was a huge fan of the beach- especially the sand. I was prepared with a TON of sand toys. Most of them went unused, but I am happy to report that the bucket and some of the 12 million shovels were used. It was sooooo nice to get away as a family and just relax. We had absolutely no plans (which really kinda drives me crazy), but is nice every once in a while. I hope ya'll have been able to take some kind of vacation. It sure makes "real life" so much easier to handle after a few days away!!

Nikki

Visitors.

This weekend we had visitors - my awesome baby brother, his fabulous wife and my handsome little nephew.  We had a blast.  Shayleigh woke up and went to sleep thinking of and asking about "baby Jackson."  She LOVES her cousins and she was absolutely thrilled that her "baby Jackson" came to visit! On Saturday, we were able to babysit Jackson so my brother and his wife could go to graduation. Although Shayleigh has stolen the title of "baby stealer" from my sister, I did get to hold and love on Jackson a little. We had a absolutely wonderful weekend getting to spend time and visit with my brother and his family!


Waiting on Uncle BeauBeau, Aunt Libbie and Jackson

If I can get out the window, maybe they will get here quicker



Waiting & Smiling



I have the cutest videos, but unfortunately I have NO IDEA how to download them. Maybe one day someone will teach me how to do that. (hint,hint Megan). I hope ya'll had an GREAT weekend too!!
Nikki



   

Mommy.

Mommy. How is it that such a small 5 letter word can make our hearts melt?!?!  We wait, breathlessly for that first "Mommy." And then it comes and from that moment on it's cloud nine! For me, ever "Mommy" after the first "Mommy" is still super surreal. And sweet. Even when it is "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy...." I love being a Mommy everyday, but somedays I love it even more than EVER! Who could resist this beautiful face?!?


5/17/12



Crooked glasses

"Mommy, slide"

I have watched this little girl grow from a small little blip on an ultrasound picture to a 7 lb 12 oz healthy baby girl and now a 21-22 lb munchkin who runs, talks nonstop, gives hugs, kisses and most importantly says "I Love You." It is amazing to watch her grow!! She is super smart (she gets that from her daddy). She can say ANYthing (she repeats EVERYthing), she can count to 15, sing songs, sing her abc's and the list goes on....Lately, I have been feeling super blessed & I just wanted to take this time to just brag on my baby girl. My request  & challenge for you?? Stop and think about the things you are blessed with.

Nikki

P.S. I spent about 3 minutes trying to figure out how to download a video...you can see how well that went....

Mother's Day 2012

My poor husband. The first 2 weeks of May can be super $$$$. We have my birthday on the 5th, Nurse's day on the 6th, Nurses week 6-12th and Mother's Day is always the 2nd Sunday in May. This year for Mother's Day Nick and Shayleigh made this for me:



Mother's Day 2012

My sweet husband expected me to actually use these. LOL. I love homemade stuff. Here is a recap of how we spent our Mother's Day weekend:



Saturday. (Just so happened we were close to where they were playing)





Sunday. Baby dedication.



ALOT of Gracelyn & Jackson (in a high pitch/shrill/sweet voice of course)



Shayleigh's favorite people :)



As you can tell we used this opportunity for a photo shoot of the cutest babies! All in all, it was a wonderful

and special weekend. I just love being able to go home and visit my family. I miss them soooo much. Three hours seems like a lifetime away & I don't feel like I ever get enough time with them. I was also able to spend a few hours with my Memaw. She will be 96 at the end of July. She is an amazing woman.



This is actually a picture from Easter, but you get the idea.

I have a also been blessed with the world's greatest mom!! She worked full time, but she NEVER missed a ball game (or anything we did for that matter).  She spent time shuttling us around from one place to another.

Mom and Dad with the grandbabies (at Easter- don't judge)

I could go on and on about the wonderful qualities of my spectacular mom, but it is way later than I expected to be up..so we will save it for another post. :)  I hope ya'll had an amazing weekend & for all you Mommy's out there -Happy Mother's Day!!

The BIG three-oh.

I was doing really good blogging, then I started getting closer and closer to the big three-oh. It is over now, but let me tell you, this birthday has made me sad and somewhat depressed. Not only because I am leaving the 20's, where a lot of great things happened, but mainly because I feel like I am not where I planned to be at 30. It seems like time has just flown. I will admit I never really thought much about 30 when I was younger. Not because I didn't expect it to come around, but because it seemed like SUCH a LOOOONG time away. And unfortunately, now it is here. To stay. So, in honor of my 30th birthday, I am going to take this time to bore ya'll with 30 things I am blessed with & also things I want to accomplish(*).

1. God                                                                           16. DVR 
2. Nick                                                                          17. Books
3. Shayleigh                                                                   18. Good Sales
4. Great Parents                                                             19. Coupons
5. Great Sibblings                                                           20. Electronics (cell phone, xoom, laptop)
6. Healthy Nieces and Nephew                                      21. Chocolate
7. Great Family                                                              22. Good Food
8. Free house                                                                 23. Good Health (myself & family)
9. Want to own our own place *                                     24. My Dyson (don't judge-I have 2 dogs=SHED
10. Job & PRN                                                              25. Diet Dr. Pepper & Coke
11. Cheyanne and Bear                                                  26. Pay off Nick's student loans*  
12. Hugs, kisses, and snuggle time w/Shayleigh & Nick   27. Lose weight *
13. Friends                                                                     28. Be a better nurse *
14. Education                                                                 29. Smile more *
15. TV                                                                           30. Fix my hair everyday *

Ok, I realize some of those might seem a bit shallow & a bit out of order. (After the first 3, I didn't worry about order as much). Don't judge, it is SUPER hard to come up with 30 things! But, as I look at my list, I realize that although 30 seems overwhelming and I might feel like I haven't accomplished as much as I thought I would at this age, I am blessed. Thank God for allowing me to celebrate the big 3-0!!!! Now, ya'll comment and make a list of things ya'll are thankful for using your age. (mainly because then you will realize it IS hard.). GO.

Disclaimer: I'm not responsible for any bodily harm I might inflict to those of you younger than 30-haha

Nursing.

I thought I would wow ya'll with some great things I hear at work everyday.  You can go ahead and thank me ahead of time :).

Nurse: "What brings you the the Emergency Room today?"
Patient: "Well my ribs are hurting."
Nurse: "Ok. Did you fall off something or hurt them anyway?"
Patient: "I got a bear hug last week."
Nurse: "A bear hug...like a tight hug from someone?"
Patient: "Yeah (with a look of stupidity directed toward nurse).

Nurse: "What brings you to the Emergency Room today?"
Patient: "My tooth be aching."
Nurse: "Have you seen a dentist?"
Patient: "I'm from out of town and I don't have money for a dentist."
Nurse (thinking in her head of course---yet you come to the emergency room?!?)

Nurse: "What brings you to the Emergency Room today?"
Patient: "My foot is hurting."
Nurse: "How long has your foot been bothering you?"
Patient: "5 years."

Nurse: **same question as before**
Patient: "I have jungle feet. It had it on one foot, but now it's spread to the other foot."

Patient: "I am here for my foot, but can I have a pregnancy test too?"

Nurse: "Where are you hurting?"
Patient: gives talk to the hand sign

Ya'll enojy!! Maybe I can hear or remember something new for next week in honor of Nurses Week. Until then, ya'll enjoy!!

Nikki



I am woman.

This post is going to be short because I am exhausted. Not only because I ate an awesome dinner - marinated stew meat on the grill & homemade scalloped potatoes. Or because I  had red velvet ice cream AND red velvet cake for dessert (don't judge- it was a busy day).  No, because I apparently decided to try to kill myself today.  I vacuumed, washed, folded, unloaded and loaded the dishwasher, cooked, cleaned the bathroom, played with Shayleigh, and mowed most of the yard. I'm not gonna lie, I did get a 2 hour nap in between, but still I am pooped. What did ya'll do today?

Nikki

P.s. I had planned to take pictures of our awesome dinner and dessert, but (1) I forgot, (2) Nick said "please don't put food pictures on your blog" {insert eye roll- from Nick of course}

Thy name is forgetfulness.

In my professional medical opinion (also known as paranoid nurse) I have (like any good nurse) self diagnosed myself with early onset Alzheimer's.  I am not kidding. My memory is terrible. I don't normally forget really big things (like birthday's or anniversaries), it is the little day-to-day things  I forget. For example, this weekend I went home to visit my family. On my way home, my sis-in-law, Libbie called and told me one of the Wal-Marts in town had diapers and wipes on clearance.  I coupon. I live for sales and I can't pass them up. This, of course, means that I dropped Nick and Shayleigh off at my parents, picked my sis-in-law up and we proceeded to head into town. At 10:15 at night.  We started off at our first Wal-Mart where I purchased diapers (I paid 15 cents a diaper) and wipes (I paid 2 cents per wipe).  Not only did I go for the good deal on diapers and wipes, I also went because Libbie told me they had kids pajamas on sale for $1-$2. If you have kids, you KNOW that is a super good deal. Kids pajamas are stinkin' expensive. Anyway, I digress. We looked through all the sales racks and I picked up the cutest little blue jean romper (I paid full price for it), and a tshirt and pants ($1.50) and a pair of black shorts ($1.00). Unfortunately, I didn't find any pajamas. That was the first walmart we stopped at. We proceeded to stop at 2 more walmarts. I got home at 1:30. I didn't unload the car because it was so late. The next morning I unloaded the car to show Nick and my mom my finds (My dad really doesn't care. Neither does Nick, but he has to pretend he does). I showed them the wipes, diapers, and the clothes I got. I thought "I could have sworn I bought more than that." It wasn't until later that night when Libbie asked how Nick liked the romper that I remembered that I bought it. So I looked everywhere for it & couldn't find it anywhere! I didn't remember buying it or walking out the store with it. Needless to say, the only thing I figure is that it was left at Walmart. If you have a child then you understand exactly the next scenario I'm about to tell you. Shayleigh has a pink blanket that she sleeps with. We call her "blankey bear" (yes, we have given an inanimate object a sex- it's pink after all).  It has a little bear head on it and it is soft on one side and silky on the underside. I had heard other people talk about these "security objects" and when I bought blankey bear I bought 2 (greatest idea ever). I switch them out pretty often for washing. This weekend I realized that I hadn't seen my extra blankey bear in a while. When I tell you Shayleigh LOVES her blankey bear, she does!

The Infamous Blankey Bear

 It has gotten to the point where we take blankey bear EVERYWHERE. She even carries her around during the day.

Shayleigh and blankey bear after breakfast & before getting ready for the day

 So imagine the panic attack I had when I couldn't find her extra one. After tearing the house up looking for her and calling the sitter, I am happy to report that I found her...in a bag on the kitchen table. Crisis averted. Those are the most recent examples I could come up with to support my earlier diagnosis. I have several more, but I won't bore you. Ya'll have an excellent day and be thankful you are not suffering from early onset Alzheimers.
Nikki

Just a cute picture I had to post

Life is short.

Lately I have been thinking about how short life truly is. I know it is kinda early for me to write such a "serious" blog, but I have a huge burden laying on my heart so I am sharing from my heart.  It is a challenge mainly for myself. I know that as we get older, we lose family, friends and acquaintances. Unfortunately, that is life. And let's be honest here, sometimes life is just not fair and doesn't seem to make sense to us. Of course, God has it under control, He knows what He is doing and therefore it doesn't really matter if we understand.  That brings me to my point (yes, I do have one). I was 18 when I lost my MawMaw. I was 2 weeks into my freshman semeter of college. She was 72 when she passed suddenly. Even though it has been almost 12 years I still miss her. I won't say that I totally understand why she was taken, but I know that she lived a good life and is in a better place. I have lost other family members since her death. My PawPaw in 2005. My great uncle in 2008. However, lately, it seems that the losses just keep coming. I hate to say it, but unfortunately it seems like the only news I hear is bad.  We hear of an older person passing away and we think "They had a good life."  Now, however, everytime I turn around it seems I am hearing about young people dying, people with families and young children. Case in point, about 3 weeks ago a woman I was close to when we worked together full time died. Unfortunately, we did a terrible job keeping in touch after we quit our full time job. She was 46. She was given 4 weeks after her diagnosis of cancer. She didn't even make it 4 weeks. She left behind a husband of 18 years and 5 kids between the ages of 18 and 7. The only thing I can think is it's just not fair. Those kids not having a mother...it is just not fair.  This past week a guy that attended our church (he was in my in laws Sunday School class) died suddenly after being involved in a motorcycle wreck. He was 41. He left behind his wife and kids, his youngest child is only 4.  These stories hurt my heart. I just can't imagine going through life without a mom or a dad. I know people do it, but it just breaks my heart. I found a blog this weekend about a 5 month old baby girl named Avery who had an SMA and was given only a few months to live. Today, I found out that she suddenly passed. A few months ago, in February, a little boy with EB a genetic disease died. He was 2 years and 8 months.  My heart is broken for these families. To loose a child has to be absolutely terrible. I can't even imagine what these families are going through. I say all this and give all these examples for one reason: LIFE. IS. SHORT. We are not promised today. We are not promised tomorrow. That's why everyday when we wake up we should THANK GOD that he has allowed us to live ONE MORE DAY.  We should not take ANYTHING for granted, because you NEVER know when you will breathe your last breath. We should never complain about a bad day (I am terrible about that), but we should be thankful that we were given another day.  We should do something everyday to make a difference in someone's life. Our children, our spouse, our inlaws (those can be the hard ones) or a perfect stranger.  We should live each day like it IS our last!! Make sure that you tell someone you love them. Make sure you kiss your spouse or your kids 10,000 times a day! Make sure you smile (oohh, I really hit home there...I am a frowner).   So, in fear of repeating myself (bad habit), I will sign off with this thought. We only have ONE LIFE! Let's live it!  Let's show others God and HIS love through our life! 


Nikki

P.S. Make sure you give those family members hugs and kisses, tell them that you love them and hold them close.
P.P.S. I am not going to lie, as I proofread this post I am thinking "what the heck makes me think I can write about this subject". But, it has been laying on heart and I think it is something I definitely need to work on. So, whoever wants to work on it with me....let's do this!  Also, feel free to write me some feedback.

My First Blog

Hey ya'll! Welcome to my blog! I don't really have anything particular I want to blog about, but I thought it would be fun to get my ideas out there. I guess I will start with some information about myself. My name is Nikki and I am an RN in the ER. I have been married to my amazing husband and best friend Nick for 6 & 1/2 years. (I know, I know...Nick and Nikki....). Like any married couple, we have had our ups and downs, but he is an absolutely wonderful man and I am so blessed. He works super hard so that I don't have to work full time anymore. Plus, he is a great daddy to our little girl.


July 2005
We look soooooo young

Ok, I am going to be super honest. I looked all over for a recent picture of us,but if you have kids you know....you just don't take couple pictures anymore.  Anyway, we were blessed August 2010 with a sweet, beautiful and incredibly smart little girl, Shayleigh.

Shayleigh continues to amaze us EVERY day and EVERY day we thank God for her. With that being said, we pray every day that we raise her the way that God would want us to.

Our little family at Easter

We also have 2 dogs

Bear and Cheyanne

and a horse

Sadie Belle

I am super close to my family. I think family should be the most important people in your life. I don't know where Nick, Shayleigh and I would be without our immediate family. I am so thankful for them. We don't always get along or agree on everything, but the good thing about family is that no matter what they are always there. Nick and I hope to instill this into Shayleigh and anyother children we might have. So, that's pretty much a very quick introduction of me and my life. I hope you will stay around and get to know me better!

Nikki