Happy Easter Yall!

I've been trying to write this post for like 3 days, and now finally, the weather might allow me finish it and get it posted. Every night I've been glued to the tv watching the tornado warnings. Fingers crossed tonight will be the end of this crazy weather week. I just heard on the news that every day for the past 6 days there has been a tornado warning or more in their viewing area. So ready for all of this to be over. And the flooding, it's nuts around here. So glad we live in the hilly and high part of the county!

Mom and Dad didn't fare to well Monday night, it could have been a lot worse, but they lost our beautiful tobacco barn, the one we put the quilt square on back last fall. I bet it's been there for 60+ years and never had anything more than a little tin blown off or maybe a door, but it was just too much for the wind/microburst/tornado, whatever it was on Monday/Tuesday morning. A few more trees down and thankfully no major damage to the house other than blowing the old tv antenna down.

Here's a few pictures Susan took Tuesday morning early. Ben went down and has been helping with clean up the past 2 days.






We were on the north side of a tornado warning last night in the "hail core." Thankfully it wasn't big hail here but there was a ton of it! Hit the pine trees so hard down by the road that the air smelled very piney after it all went through!

Here's more about our Easter weekend!

I find it a little amusing that Mallory is now over a year old and having her first Easter. I know, it's because it changes every year, but something about that I just find funny. She was born the day after Easter last year and now at 12.5 months, we are having Easter!

Because Ben had off for Good Friday and Mrs. Carole was taking off to go out of town to see her son for the weekend, and Aunt Brenda and Uncle Jim were to be at Mom and Dad's Friday and Saturday, I took off Friday as well and we headed down to Elkton mid morning on Friday.

It was good to get to see Aunt Brenda and Uncle Jim again, and it was their first time seeing Mallory other than Skype.



We had a good weekend visiting with everyone and eating some good food. Did a little family history with Aunt Brenda, who is the family archivist, and just tried to avoid the rain and storms as much as possible.

Overall Mallory was in pretty good spirits the whole time.

Easter morning she got up and we had her Easter Baskets ready, one from us and one from Mom and Dad. I've got some pictures below with those and her little rabbit ears I bought for her.

We went to church, she was pretty good most of the time as long as puffs were constatnly being fed to her!









Sunday afternoon at home she was fairly crabby and today she's got a bit of a cough/runny nose/low grade fever, so I'm not sure if she's just worn out from the weekend or just some allergy/cold/teething stuff going on, but I stayed home with her today.

I try to work some on days like today, but it doesn't always work out all that well!

Ben is still hunting for that elusive Turkey, no luck yet, but he's got several more weeks.

I'm super excited that our March for Babies is this coming Saturday. If you haven't donated to our team yet but would like to, please do so before Thursday by clicking on the Team Butterbean picture on the top right side of the blog and it will take you to the donation page.

I haven't gotten everything all added up, but it looks like we should meet our $1000 team goal!!

We are also looking to push a little harder to try to sell the camper. We just never use it. We are already gone so much to my parents or over to Sikeston when we can and I'd really prefer to spend more weekends at home, not in a camper, so it's time for it to serve another family. Part of me doesn't want to sell it, because I'm sure there will be a time that we will want one again, but we will just cross that bridge when we get there, for now, it's just an extra toy that we aren't using.

If you know anyone who might want a camper, send them over HERE to look at all the details and pictures!

Hope everyone had a Happy Easter!!

And, in my new tradition here's an "old" picture. Here's Ben and I our first Easter as a married couple, the Sunday we got back from our Honeymoon. Aren't we cute!!

Mallory is so funny....videos!!

Mallory just does funny things all the time and I'm glad I have video functions on my iphone and camera to share with the rest of you.

Of course, some may not find them any where near as amusing as Ben and I do, but we will share anyway.

I really find that almost all our videos have Tucker barking in the background, that in itself makes me laugh!

Here's the first one.

Mallory thinks it's just hilarious to smush her face into the mesh on her pack and play:


Here's the next one where she seems to enjoy "slapping" daddy:


Here she was tonight with her "bubble goatee" in the tub!

Continued Birthday's Anniversaries, and lots more!

I really meant to post last night but I left my camera at mom and dad's and mom thankfully had to come through Owensboro today so she dropped it off to me! Now we can post some pictures!!

But, first things first. I promised the video of Bean in her swing. I was having uploading problems last week but today it worked! Here she is, enjoying her swing for the first time!



Now, on to the other good stuff going on!

Team Butterbean shirts have arrived and I LOVE them!! If you ordered one, I'll ship or bring it to you sometime in the next week. The walk is getting ever closer and I can't wait! Donations are still greatly accepted!!

Also, on the March of Dimes note, April 15th has come and gone and Run for Dimes has come to an end. I ended up having 28 dimes sponsored for every mile I ran between Jan 1 and April 15 and I ran 148 miles, so that's a little over $400 raised through Run for Dimes!! If you sponsored me, I'll be sending you an email/message soon about how to pay. Thanks to you all!

The big 1st Birthday celebration continued at Day Care this week. Because many of the kiddos were out for Spring Break the week of Bean's birthday, we opted to have the part y on the 14th.

I left my camera with Mrs Carole so she could take some pictures for me and here's a few of those.....guess we are teaching her early girls should celebrate birthday's for as long as possible!!







Looks like fun was had by all!!

Well, Turkey season opened this weekend, and that meant a trip to Elkton so Ben and Nick could hunt. It meant shopping for the girls, although I didn't get much. I did find a dress I'll wear for Easter and some cute shoes for Bean.

Here's how I found Ben after his morning of hunting.....didn't shoot anything this weekend.

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Ben and I went out with Susan and Nick Saturday night to the Japanese Steak House in Clarksville for our Anniversary. Brought back memories of Bennihanna on our honeymoon!

Here's some pictures of the weekend. Dad bought Mallory some waterfowl, or so he claims, so here's some with Mallory meeting her new pets!






We had PT today, they think that "maybe" our next visit in 2 weeks will be the last one, finally!!

And, in a new tradition, I'm going to dig up one old photo every post to share and relive!

So, in Japanese Steak House Memories, here we are at Bennihanna on our Honeymoon!

Running and New "real" friends

This was my big weekend, what I've been training for 16 weeks for, our Half Marathon!! 13.1 miles!

My "virtual" training partner and friend Christi was heading down Friday with her youngest, Gunner, and her hubby Brian, Friday night.

In case you have missed it, I "met" Christi while I was still in the hospital pregnant with Mallory. Our stories are oddly similar. She started leaking fluid at about week 27 and spent 6 weeks in the hospital with Gunner born at 33 weeks 1 day, just like Mallory, exactly 10 months to the day before Mallory. They were both around 4 pounds and had very similar issues and time in the NICU, 35 days for bean, 39 for Gunner. As we continued to get to know one another through our blogs and preemie boards we just had more similarities and our husbands seemed similar too, both enjoyed hunting, both born in July of the same year, etc...

Christi, Brian and Gunner came over to the house around lunch on Saturday. We visited, had lunch at Moonlight and stopped at Whitakers.

Here's a few pictures from the afternoon.









We then headed to Evansville to pick up Christi's race packet and eat some pasta to continue the carb load prior to the race.

We headed back home and I got all my gear laid out and ready because I was going to have to leave the house at 4:45 am!

For a while I was worried about rain on race day but as it crept nearer the weather looked clear, but two things were worrisome, the forecasted heat and wind. Perfect temps on race day would be high 40's to low 60's max.....at 4:45 the temp was already 69. They even canceled the full marathon because of the heat.

With excitement and nerves we got lined up in our pace corral, yep, like cattle. We lined up in the rear because I know I was slow and even though Christi was faster, we were sticking together. We had matching shirts made:





We actually got a lot of positive comments from our shirts, more than I thought we would.

Here we are pre-race!



My fuel belt does nothing for my figure, but I'm glad I had it!!

The first 5 miles or so were pretty good. The course was way hillier than I anticipated, and with the heat and wind, my slow self was even slower!

But we trudged along running and then walking some. Mile 8 and 9 went by and we were super excited to see mile 10! Just a 5k left to go! Mile 11 came into view and I felt a blister on my foot pop. Oww. That last 2.1 miles took forever! Walking made my feet hurt less but made my hip hurt more. Thanks to Christi, she helped push us through to run across the finish line!

Ben, Mallory, Brian and Gunner were waiting for us and cheering near the finish. It was all quite emotional, I shed a few tears! Such an amazing feeling!!

Here we are afterwards...I just wanted to sit, lol!! Our official time was 3:14:06, not great, but hoping for under 3 hours next time!




It was a great weekend and we've already planned our next one, in September in Michigan! Now the goal is to lose 20 pounds in 20 weeks!

I celebrated my Achievement with a massage on Monday. Awesome! Sunday was a little rough but was feeling better by early evening. Just tired and sore.

Today we are celebrating our 8th Anniversary and Tucker's 8th birthday!! Ben cooked us dinner!

Here's a few more pictures of Mallory because I know that's all you really want to see!!













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1 yr checkup and helmet appt

Sorry for not posting yesterday, I was just exhausted from running all over the place yesterday and trying to wrestle a 1 year old and keep her from the germ infested floors of the dr's office!

She doesn't like to be held anymore. period. which isn't great when you are sitting for 15+ minutes in the doctors office, like wrestling an anaconda or something.

But, we got our 1 year checkup with Dr. Phillips! She weighed in at 18 lb 15 oz. Which is a little lighter than I anticipated but considering she choked on her pancake prior to the appointment and the threw up all her breakfast and milk, she was a little lighter than normal. She was like 19 lb 4 oz at home the other day and that's probably closer to right.

She came in at 29.5 inches long! Tall and skinny, who would have thunk it. I think she was around 12% on her weight and 50% on height. Her head was 18 inches and I think that was 50% as well. Overall, fairly normal.

Nothing of any great note from the appointment. 3 shots and she seemed pretty well on track developmentally.

The off to Louisville to go see Aaron the Helmet Fixer Upper Dude....he's not a Dr so I don't know what else to call him, but we like him : )

Gotta love these 2 hours to the dr appointments for a whole 15 minutes of time there and then 2 hours back. That's what makes me so tired!

I was hoping the helmet would be gone, but alas, he wants us in it for another month. Her head has improved another 1/8 of an inch for 1/4 inch total improvement, to me it looks better than 1/4 inch improvement, but we are making progress.

He said the closer she gets to her soft spot closing for good the less movement there would be but since the helmet still fits, it isn't too tight and it cost a small fortune, lets keep it on and see if we can get some more improvement out of it. So, another month of helmet here we come. Not that it's that big of a deal, just something you look forward to ditching. She actually doesn't really like for it to be off now and will have to get used to NOT having it later on.

We also need to adjust some of the helmet bling, she lost her Y the other day in Mallory, so now it's just Mallor......I've got extras, I've just got to put my finger on them!

Sunday is Half Marathon Day!! Wish me luck! It's going to be warmer than I had hoped for, but I'm sure we will make it fine. It starts at 7 am, so it's not like we will be running at high noon....at least I hope I will not still be out there at high noon!!

Also, April 10 is Tiffany's birthday!! And then Tuesday is Ben and I's 8th Anniversary and Tucker's 8th birthday! Lots going on.

We will be celebrating Mallory's birthday at Mrs. Carole's on Thursday the 14th when the most kiddos possible are there to celebrate, so look for pictures of that coming up too!

And lastly, I've placed the order for Team Butterbean Tee Shirts, but there's still time if you want one, just let me know.

I've also extended my 31 party to close on Monday the 11th now, so be sure to look at www.thirtyonegifts.com and see if there's anything you would like. We get 15% of the sales back to our MOD team!!

Here's a few pictures of Mallory on her actual Birthday!!

Mallory's First Birthday Party

Wow, my baby will be one tomorrow! How crazy is that???

After those 7 weeks in the hospital for me seeming like an eternity and then those 5 week for her being in the NICU, a second eternity, it seems as though the past 11 months have flown by!!

She is quite the wiggle worm, makes me tired just trying to get her dressed! I guess this is just normal 1 year old stuff, but man, she will not sit still!

We celebrated Saturday afternoon at Mom and Dad's. Grilled burgers and hot dogs, opened presents and had cupcakes. We bought ice cream but totally forgot all about eating it! Mallory seemed to have fun. She got a little too excited and hot and had a couple coughing fits. She been fighting some kind of allergy/cough for about two weeks now, so she just got a little over stimulated!

Just so I will remember for the future, in attendance were: of course me, Ben and Mallory, Aunt Sue, Uncle Nick, Grammy and Grandpa C, Grammy and Grandpa W, Memaw, Great Aunt Sharon, Cousin/Uncle (LOL inside joke) Matt, Mike, Mrs Carol, Zaylei, Matt, Stefanie.

Here's some of my favorite one's from the festivities and weekend. I've uploaded all of these and more to her shutterfly account in an album of her 1st birthday, so feel free to order any you like and if you've got some good ones, email them to me and I'll add them as well!

Overall we had a great time! We love our little Butterbean! We will have a special family day tomorrow and then we will celebrate at Day Care on the 13th since this week is spring break and many of the kids are out on vacation this week.