Gatlinburg continued

Sweet Grady wanted to have his pictures made too so he crawled on this rock and smiled so big.

They are finally getting to the age where I can get a decent picture of them, but sometimes, they can still be difficult.

This is a perfect example. This would have been such a great picture, but Grady decided to be difficult. Oh well.

Luckily, my mom was with us, so Brother and I were able to get our picture made together several times. Usually it is either me or him with the kids while the other takes the pictures. There was this waterfall off the road that was so beautiful. I just wish you could see it better in this picture.
The colors weren't at peak yet--we were probably a week too early.

Our last night, we went to the Dixie Stampede. I wasn't too sure what to expect, but everyone said we just had to go. Let me tell you, if you have never been and you have kids, you have got to take them--it's a little pricy at 46.99 a ticket, but it does include your meal and show. The kids weren't too sure about not having a fork to eat with (I never let them eat with their hands), but they did a pretty good job. I have never seen them sit that still during a meal. You couldn't take pictures during the show or I would have plenty to show you the expressions on their faces. One of the male performers threw Rollins a carnation, which you notice in the picture. She thought she was so special. After the show, you can meet the performers and horses.

ok, so it's not letting me add any more photos so I will continue in another post

Gatlinburg

Ok, so I know my last blog was about lack of commitment and how I was going to do better at posting, and guess what, I didn't. Sorry. Things are starting to slow down a bit, so I thought I would get back to blogging. For those of you that didn't know, these past few weeks have been extremely difficult and trying for our family. I miscarried our 3rd child on October 8, and my grandfather, Pop Neal, passed away on October 15. I never understood the emotions that go along with a miscarriage until now. I don't think anyone can understand until they go through it themselves, but luckily I have a couple of wonderful friends that have been through this and offered words of encouragement on a daily basis, and to that, I am ever so grateful! The death of my grandfather only fueled my emotions, so my wonderful husband planned a trip for our family along with my parents to Gatlinburg. He booked the cabin at 1:30 AM on the day we left. I love last minute trips--they are so exciting, but I ended up staying up til 4 in the morning packing.

This was our lovely cabin 'Afternoon Delight'. It was between Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge so it was a wonderful location.

I don't know if you can see, but there is a hot tub in the background. Brother and I were so excited to have the hot tub, but the first night we were there, we heard something outside the window. To our surprise, there were two raccoons on our porch. Brother was so excited and started feeding them cheerios. I told him there was absolutely no way, I was getting in a hot tub with wild animals!

We rode the chair lift to the top of the mountaing and the kids loved the snack shop that awaited them.
Since my parents were there, Brother and I were actually able to get a picture together:)

Unfortunately, Brother dropped the camera while we were there and the lens broke, so here is our family picture taken with a broken camera--I so wish it was in focus, but oh well, it will have to do.
While in town, we ran into a man on a motorized wheelchair that looked just like Santa. After we started talking to him, we found out, he was "santa" and even gave us one of his business cards.

By the second night, my parents had arrived, and I was feeling a little braver about getting in the hot tub. The kids joined us and had an absolute blast!
We hiked to Laurel Falls since it was the only stroller friendly trail in the park. There was a beautiful water fall and bridge at the end of the trail. Rollins loved posing in front of the falls. While my mom was taking a picture of Grady and I, I said, "look, there's a bear!" She thought I was just saying that to get Grady to look at the camera, when infact, there was an actual bear. It walked up to one of the hikers and took his bag of food. I was amazed at how calm the bear and hiker were--I would have freaked out.

Here is a picture of the bear getting the bag of food. Notice how the man is just standing there!

We stopped all along the way to take pictures. I would love to have a creek like this going through my backyard.
Ok, so I am not done, but it is 1 in the morning and I have a 9 am doctors appt in huntsville, so I must get me sleep. I will finish the rest tomorrow.

Lack of Commitment

OK, so my last blog was about how I was going to do a better job on blogging, but guess what, I failed again. I have come to the conclusion that there is just way too much going on in my life and I need to slow down a bit. Here it is 1 AM and I am in my daughter's bedroom with her and her first sleepover company eating beanie weanies watching Peter Pan. To many, that's not exactly an accomplishment, but to me it is. All my life I wanted to be a wife and a mother, but not just any mother. I really wanted to raise Godly, loving children that enjoyed spending time with me. It wasn't about what career path I chose or who I associated myself with--it was about the children I would bring to this earth and the relationships I would develop with them. I am so proud of them, and even though they are just 2 and 3, they are amazing kids. I try to spend as much time with them as possible making memories that will last a lifetime. I am not a big fan of daycare unless you have to work. If God has blessed you with being able to stay at home, I think you should take total advantage of it. Now that Rollins and Grady are older by my standards, I am able to take them more places alone and I am really enjoying this new found independence the three of us have. It is quite exciting to be able to wake up and say where would you like to go today--Chattanooga, Atlanta, Nashville, Birmingham? My kids are as adventurous as I am, and I am so glad they like to travel on a whim as well. I am especially looking forward to this school year. They will be going to nursery school on the same days (3 days a week for 3 hours a day) so I can get some much needed sewing in for Kennedy James Clothing, and the other two days will be our "fun days". I can't wait to see what activities we will come up with. I am sad, however, that this will be Rollins last year at home before she starts kindergarten. I try not to think about it too much.

I will be posting pictures and brief comments from the past months over the next few days so you all can get up to date with what's been going on in the life of the Whitakers.

I am back!

Ok, so I know most of you probably thought I fell off the face of this earth, but that's not the case. We have just been extremely busy since Christmas, so in an effort to fill everyone in on all the exciting things going on, I will be blogging quite frequently to get caught up.

I am startng with Rollins's first haircut, and yes, she is 3 1/2 years, and her hair has never been touched by scissors. She has never wanted to get her hair cut but it was down to her bottom when wet and beginning to look a little frayed. I finally convinced her to pay a visit to Mrs. April by telling her she could pick out ANYTHING she wanted to wear. Well, she comes downstairs with this tacky red $20 Christmas Dress she got off a bribe at Target--I do not like "fancy" dresses. I prefer smocked or heirloom dresses for Sundays, so this dress had not been worn except in playing around the house. I couldn't believe I was going to let her wear it in public and to make matters worse, Christmas had passed over a month ago at this point, but I thought, you do what you've got to do, and she wore the dress. I took some pictures before we left, and she enjoyed modeling for me in her fancy red dress.

Rollins hopped right out of the car when we pulled up, and I thought, this isn't going to be that bad afterall. She ran right to "pink building", but soon stopped at the door--Oh no, she was turning back--the red dress failed me, and she had changed her mind. I was pleading with her to walk through the door--I was already holding Grady and had the camera in my other hand, so I couldn't carry her in. It was at that point I realized it was all my fault--for 3 years I have threatened her with her life if she cut her hair, and when she wouldn't let me brush it, I would say, well I guess I will have to cut it all off. She associated getting her hair cut with getting into trouble. How was I going to explain to her that this was a good thing. She cried and cried and I had to call Brother to meet me down there so he could help with Grady, and I could hold her in the chair.

This was absolutely pitiful. Your first haircut is suppost to be exciting and here the day we had waited on for 3 1/2 years was filled with tears. It broke my heart.

Rollins has made it perfectly clear that she does not need anymore haircuts--I don't know how we are going to handle this in the future, but we will cross that bridge when we get there. Til then, I let her use scissors more freely and without the fear of getting in trouble because I know now that she will never cut her own hair.

Carly's 4th Birthday Party

When Brother went to work at Northwestern, we were fortunate to meet a couple families who had little girls Rollins age there. One of these was Carly. They don't see eachother that much because they live in Gadsden, but they always enjoy their time together. For Carly's 4th Birthday, she had a gymnastics party, which Rollins was so pumped about. She said, "mom this is a girls only birthday so dad and Grady can't go." She all about "girl only things". Here is a picture of Rollins in the pit.

Here is Ally and Rollins after running down the tramp to jump in the pit. Ally's father also works with Brother. They are only a few weeks apart.

This was Carly's Princess Cake. Rollins said she wanted a cake just like this one. We are planning a trip to Disney World in February, and Carly and Rollins will be making a visit to the Bippity Boppity Boutique so they can be a princess and hopefully eat in Cinderella's castle provided we can get reservations:)

I wish we had a gym in Guntersville where you could have birthday parties. Rollins does gymnastics in Huntsville at Southern States. She absolutely loves it, and I think this is such a wonderful idea for a birthday.

Rollins Update

So, many of you have called to check on Rollins, so I wanted to let everyone know what is going on. We went to the doctor last Wednesday just to make sure everything was ok and that this was just a freak thing. Dr. Boggess said he believed she passed out from a lack of oxygen because she was crying. However, I did share something with him that I hadn't really discussed with anyone til now. Rollins has this thing she does where she will be playing and all of a sudden go in this daze. I can say her name, and she doesn't respond. I can wave my hand in front of her eyes and she doesn't blink. Then after 10 to 30 seconds, she loosens up and starts laughing. I had always thought she was doing this on purpose to be funny. She sometimes does it multiple times a day. Dr. Boggess has another theory, though. He said it sounds like typical petit mal seizures, and asked how long she had been having them. It's been going on so long, that I honestly have no idea. He said he wanted to get her to a pediatric neurologist because this can really affect her ability to concentrate when she starts school. I told him how Brother has been saying he thought she had ADHD because she can't concentrate and looses focus very easily. If this diagnosis is correct, this could explain her lack of concentration.

Of course as soon as I got home, I got on google. I found out that many times these seizures go undetected for months and these type seizures don't have that "confusion" phase that happens after most seizures. Rollins is able to go right back to what she was doing before it happened and has no remembrance of what happened during the seizure. In most cases, they outgrow them by their teenage years and even though they can't be prevented, medication can be taken to help lower the frequency.

I have to be honest, I am not upset about this at all. I know we have been through a lot with Rollins, and this just seems like another bump in the road. It could be so much worse--I had friends that would have grand mal seizures--that would absolutely terrify me. I know God isn't going to give us more than we can handle. He has already done wonderful things with her Gastritis, and she is a healthy 34 pounds (25th percentile) 3 year old. Grady, too, is getting much better, and is now 27 pounds (25th percentile) and will be 2 in two weeks. We are even planning a trip to Disney World in the next couple months. I am very anxious to see how this goes since neither Rollins or Grady have been away from home since last Fall when we went to Auburn. For those of you that don't know, their Gastritis and Esophagitis is much worse when we travel. They also will not even spend the night with my parents. It's really sad when your 3 year old says she doesn't want to stay in a hotel because it makes her throw up. I am keeping my fingers crossed that all the excitement of Disney will trump these disorders!

Anyway, I will keep you all posted on Rollins appointment with the neurologist. She is such a special little girl with a heart of gold. I am so blessed to have her!

Grady has melted my heart

For those of you with second children very close in age to your first child, you might have noticed that they don't do things as quickly as the first--or maybe it's just my children. Rollins was talking up a storm by her 2nd birthday. However, Grady has kept his thoughts to himself. He'll say Roll Tide, Hold Me, Golf Cart, Aubie and then of course any one syllable word. He turns two syllable words into one syllable by just pronouncing the first syllable. Like Rollins is Ra, Mommy is Ma, and Daddy is Da. I have been working with him on saying I love you, but he never would even say I, he would just hug himself when I would say I love you. This past week, all four of us were in bed watching a movie, and I whispered in Grady's ear, "I love you!" He turned to my ear, and whispered back, "I love you!" Then gave me a kiss! Now, this is the only way he will say I love you, but he will only do it to Brother or me. My mom has tried so hard with no luck. I guess God kept him from saying it for so long, because he wanted it to be special, and that it was!