Christmas 2012

Christmas 2012

It was a Christmas that we will never forget for very bittersweet reasons.  Christmas Eve brought us 2 sick kiddos so we had to split up so Adam and I and the healthy kiddos got to spend time with extended family.  Graham, Emmalee and I headed to my Grandads house for Christmas Eve brunch while Adam took care of feverish Loey and newly feverish Tucker.  Tucker was all dressed and ready to go and got a fever right before brunch. :( Adam allowed me to attend the Christmas Eve service that afternoon with Graham and Emmalee before we traded places and I stayed home with the twins and Emmalee.  I was feeling sad for our family that day and a little pouty.  Little did I know that things were going to be put drastically into perspective the next few days.  Around midnight I received a phone call from Laura saying she felt really weird and was having some issues (I'll leave the details out of most of this...) She ended up going to the hospital and was going into labor!  AH! Oh my word. Laura was only 22 weeks pregnant with her twins and we were really scared.  As I was up nursing Emmalee that night, I was praying for her labor to stop.  At 4:00am, we found out it wasn't stopping.  Adam and I stayed up praying and in shock and disbelief.  We waited on the couch for our kids to wake up (I'm pretty sure that might be the only time we are awake on Christmas morning before our kids).  We were able to enjoy opening presents with our kids for a half hour or so before we found out more news.  Here are a few random Christmas morning pics.  Most of our pics from Christmas are no that good- our minds were elsewhere. 

Here is a pic of story time before bed a few nights before Christmas.

Loey was cracking us up by wearing a backpack and snow hat around the house all night.

 

Funny, spunky girl

All the stockings were hung with care... (and fishing wire...we had to make sure no heads were sliced open from stocking hangers)

 

Look closely, there is Zippy the elf with his goodbye letter to the kids.  He'll be back next year!

Santa left the kids a note!

Surveying the goods!

I think Loey's favorite gift was a sucker in her stocking.  She wouldn't stop talking about the sucker Santa Claus gave her.  Another funny story...Loey was nervous to come downstairs on Christmas morning until she realized that Santa Claus was not ACTUALLY in our house at that moment.

As a parent, Christmas morning is so much fun to see your kids light up with excitement! 

That is, until you realized you forgot to buy your eldest son a "toy" for Christmas.  Oops.  He wanted a Christmas village for Christmas so he got several pieces of that, but he wanted some toys like Tucker got.  Mental note for next year: get the child a TOY!  He got a picture frame, clothes, cool towel, train table windmill and several other non toy items.  Parent fail.  Haha- although I'm not too sad for the kid.  He's pretty blessed to the MAX!

 

 

Every girl needs a stroller for her babies.  =)  Loey uses this all the time!

Our Wildman loved the rocker, that is until he rocked so hard it tipped over. Tucker man is always pushing the limits when it comes to safety. 

 

Adam and I spent the majority of Christmas day at the hospital with Laura and Luke and the family.  My parents watched the kids at our house until that night.  We headed over to their house for pizza dinner and Christmas at Gigi & Gpa's house.   

Amazingly, Laura held off going into labor on Christmas Day.  On December 26th, sweet Bexley Rose was born around 8:00am and sweet Brady Wade was born around 5:30pm.  I was blessed enough to witness the birth of my tiny nephew and I'll never forget it.  Brady passed away the next evening on December 27th.  What an emotional time for our whole family, but obviously for Laura and Luke.  Christmas will always be a time where we remember our Lord and Savior's birth and soon after how we were blessed with Bexley and Brady.  Even thought Brady is in heaven now, he made a huge impact with his tiny life.  We look forward to seeing him again someday.  I'm so confident we will!!! 
Bexley Rose is now almost 8 lbs and only 1 day away from her actual due date, April 25th.  God has been SO GOOD in answering so many prayers for her.  She is a miracle.  Plain and simple. Doctors can't explain her rate of development and statistically she has surpassed the odds for her! God has big plans for her life.  We look forward to the next phase- Bexley and Laura returning home to Evansville to be with Luke and begin their journey as a family at home.