Christmas!!!

As Christmas approaches I find myself not prepared and stressing every time I think of having to run out to get something. Don't get me wrong, I love this time of year! I'm like a little kid. I for some reason just don't have the patiences to shop like I used to. Thank goodness for the internet!!!!

Santa's on his way!

Thanks Mrs. Lori for the hair bows!!

The twins will turn four months old on Christmas Day. They are changing so much. We are excited to celebrate their first Christmas.


Kyle surprised Mollie Grace with her Christmas present early Saturday. He gave her a 5 month old donkey and she LOVES IT!!! She named it Bubba after her Bubba (Kyle)! She is so funny. It was pouring down rain and she asked her daddy if she could ride in the trailer with her Bubba!!

Patiently awaiting the arrival of her gift!

Thank you Bubba!

Saturday night I was able to have a girls night out to celebrate my best friend Lana's 40th birthday!!! What a blast!! It is so nice to be able to get out with a bunch of girls. HAPPY BIRTHDAY LANA!

Great bunch of ladies!

Here's wishing you and yours a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!

How hard can it be?

As you can all tell by the posted picture, it is very difficult to take pictures of 3 month olds and a honoree 14 year old. I had this image in my head for the great Christmas card picture and guess what, IT DIDN'T HAPPEN!! I will just try again next year.

Here are a few new pictures

"Mom please stop making my picture"

Twins are 3 months old!!!!

Where has the time gone? It seems like we waited forever for them to get here and now they are 3 months old!!! Matt is growing by leaps and bounds. He is getting so big. He would love to roll over and he has the sweetest little grin you have ever seen. He is not far from laughing out loud. He made his first trip to the store with his dad last night and from what I hear he was a good boy. Maggie is so petite. And spoiled rotten. She loves to be held and loved on. There is no doubt she will rule the roost one day.

Mom's family got together for Thanksgiving last Saturday. It was nice to see everyone. We don't see them very often. My cousin Mica is expecting her first child in June. She is doing well. We wish her best of luck!!!

Kyle killed his first deer of the season on Saturday.

Our families are coming to the house on Thursday for Thanksgiving lunch. It is wonderful that we can all come together. I have so much to do and little time to do it. I am never prepared to have folks at the house. I can never seem to get the house clean at one time. I WONDER WHY!!

I am looking forward to being off a few days. I hope to get my Christmas trees up on Thursday. I love decorating for the holidays. My favorite time of year. Mom and I are going shopping in Memphis on Friday!!! I love the hussel and bussel of Black Friday! I hope to finish up my shopping.

I promise to post some updated pics of the kids soon. Can never remember to bring my camera.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!!!

Doctor's Visit

Took the kids yesterday for their first round of shots. Patty Spencer gave them the shots. She did a great job and the kids only screamed for a minute. Myself being terrified of a needle had to let mom hold them. Sorry, I've always hated a needle! Matt weighed in at 12.11 lbs and Maggie weighed 10.6. Dr. Scott said they looked great! They have been pretty fussy since, but we are putting the motrin to them and hopefuly by the afternoon today they will feel better.

I'm having all the kids pictures made tomorrow afternoon. Hopefully everyone will coroperate.

Dad and Kyle heading down to the deer camp tonight for a deer meat cooking. Kyle is getting excited about hunting season. He bought him a new gun a few months ago and is anxious to use it. Maybe he will get a BIG one this year!

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Election Day

Went to the polls and voted yesterday. Stood in line for 10 minutes. I have never had to wait to vote. I will have to say I'm worried about where this Nation is going to go. I hope and pray that Obama will stand behind the things he has promised. There is one thing about it, we can't worry, we just have to trust that the Good Lord will take care of things. Please continue to pray for our Nation.

Mollie Grace

Mollie Grace (left) and her friend Alexis

As most of you know Mollie Grace is our one and only sweet niece. She has been spoiled rotten since the day she came into our lives.

She is full of questions and sometimes can ask more than you can answer. I took her to Wal-Mart with me on Saturday. She would say "Me-Me what's that?" I would answer and she would say "Why?"I would say "Cause." She would say "Cause why?" and so on. It is so much fun to be with her. She is so innocent.

I bought her a beautiful red dress for her Halloween happy. Friday morning she looked at it and said, "I not like it." I said, "Mollie Grace why not." She said, "I not like it Me-Me." So anyway she wears it to church yesterday and looks so sweet in it and on the way home from church I said, "Who brought you that pretty red dress?" And she looks at me with those sweet big blue eyes and says, "You did silly." And she told me she liked it. You never know with that girl!

Took the kids from church to see Disney on Ice yesterday. It was great. When I was a kid mom always took us to see things like that. Now that I'm older I still enjoy it just as much. Twins did really well. I figured we would be give out having to hold them the whole time, but they slept for the first half of the show and enjoyed the second half. The lights entertained them.

Had Shane's birthday supper last night at mom and dad's. It's always good to have the family together.

This new time is really messing me up. At 7:30 I was ready for bed, needless to say the kids were ready to stay awake for a while.

Allen and I had a date night on Friday night. Had a great time and a good night of much needed sleep. Thanks mom and dad for babysitting! We will let you do it again some time!

Matt and his Big resting.

Hope everyone has a good week. The twins get their shots on Thursday. Will update everyone on their weights, etc.

Halloween

Happy Halloween!!

Shane holding Matt.


Today is Shane's birthday. He is 29. He is such a special person to me. He is more like my child than my brother. After serving 8 years in the Marine Corp. and living in California he finally decided it was time to come home. Even though we still don't see him everyday, we know he is here with us. I know I get on his nerves telling him what he needs to do and how he needs to do it, but most of the time we get along great. I say that he was born on Halloween and has been a devil ever since!

Today is the twins FIRST HALLOWEEN. No we are not going trick or treating! Too much trouble. Kyle hated trick or treating. He hated everyting about it custom, candy, etc. So I guess one good thing about not going is I won't end up eating all the candy!!

Here's a pic of the twins in their Baby's 1st Halloween outfits.
They look real happy don't they!

Hope everyone has a great weekend and remember don't eat too much candy, it's bad for your teeth!!!

Thankfulness!

I received the following in an email today. I thought it was pretty good.

As we grow up, we learn that even the one person that wasn't supposed to ever let you down probably will. You will have your heart broken probably more than once and it's harder every time. You'll break hearts too, so remember how it felt when yours was broken. You'll fight with your best friend. You'll blame a new love for things an old one did. You'll cry because time is passing too fast, and you'll eventually lose someone you love. So take too many pictures, laugh too much, and love like you've never been hurt because every sixty seconds you spend upset is a minute of happiness you'll never get back. Don't be afraid that your life will end, be afraid that it will never begin.

I went shopping on Sunday in Memphis. On the way up we were talking about things we were thankful for. We were all thankful for our family, of course. But I as I drove and thought about the question, "What are you thankful for?" I realized that I am thankful for so much. The Lord has blessed me tremendously!!

With the twins I prayed so hard that He would keep them healthy. "Just let them weigh 5lbs Lord so we can all come home together." "Just let them make it til 36 weeks so their lungs will be developed." And on and on. Praying. The wonderful thing of praying. It's hard sometimes to be patient and wait on the Lord, but you just have to put it in his hands and let him deal with it.

I'm the worrier of the family. Shane, my brother, is the free spirited child. He lives for the day. I'm always worried about tomorrow. Kyle doesn't even have his drivers' license yet, even though he drives, and I'm worried about the first time he goes out by himself!!

A good thing happened today, Allen was in Tupelo and we got to have lunch together!! For some of you reading this you are probably thinking, "big deal", but for Allen and I that is a big deal. It's hard for us to find time for one another these days.

Twins are doing great. Sleeping pretty good. We were up at 4 this morning ready to play, so it has been a long day for me. I called to check on them and they were napping. Oh to have a nap!! Matt is growing, getting so big. He was the little runt and now he has filled out so much. He is up to taking 5 ozs of milk and just sucks the bottom out of the bottle. Little Maggie is so petite. She is taking 4 ozs. of milk and it takes her forever. Maybe she will be laid back and not up tight like her mother. They are pretty much on the same schedule with eating and sleeping. It can get pretty hairy sometimes, but we are adjusting.

Enough rambling for the day! Have a Great Day!!

About the Dodd's

Allen and I married on August 14, 1993. James Kyle Dodd was born on February 4, 1994. We lived in a single wide trailer for several years. Allen's grandmother passed away and we purchased her house and lived there until November 2005. We built our first house, and yes, our marriage survived it, and yes, I got pregnant. Had a miscarriage in December. I was 8 weeks pregnant and that was the hardest thing I had ever been through in my life. At the time I was reading the book "A Purpose Driven Life" and one day I was doing my daily reading and it was about all things happen for a reason. A peace came over me and I understand now that we weren't suppose to have that baby. To this day when I think about it I still cry.

Allen's parents always loved our house. They told us if we ever got ready to build again that they wanted first choice at buying it. In 2007 we decided to build again, never thought that would happen. So the in-laws bought our house and we started the building process in April 2007. Moved in the end of August 2007.

September 1, 2007, my mother-in-law, sister-in-law and myself had a yard sale. Had a great day of fellowship and actually made a little fun money! About 8 o'clock that night I was home by myself and Ms. Wanda called with concern in her voice. She couldn't find my father-in-law, Ronald. I called Allen and my dad to come and help us. Mr. Ronald had an accident on the four-wheeler in front of their house and passed away. It was all like a dream. Nothing seemed right. He had just got to move to the house of his dreams. He was working outside doing things he wanted to do. To this day nothing seems right about his passing, but we know that God has a plan and he makes no mistakes.

One Friday night in December Kyle and I spent the night with Ms. Wanda. She and I had gotten up pretty early on Saturday and we were eating our breakfast, having coffee and talking about life. We had been talking about Mr. Ronald and I was telling her how I was happy with Kyle, but that I was sad because he would be the only child and when we were all gone he would have nobody.

Come January I knew something wasn't right. I was scared to do a pregnancy test. I put it off and put it off. I was sitting here at work and I called my best friend Renee and told her to come down to the office. She came running to hold my hand. I did test and sure enough I WAS PREGNANT. I called Allen and told him the test was positive. We couldn't believe it. I then called my mom and she was OVERJOYED by the news. I then called and made the doctors appointment to confirm. I was a nervous wreck. I worried and worried. Allen kept telling me not to worry that all would be fine, but I couldn't help it.

My doctor's appointment was on January 30, 2008. I was terrified to go. I just knew something was wrong. Mom went with me. I had told them the history of the miscarriage, so they wanted to do a sonogram. Mom and I walked into the room for the sonogram and I actually thought I was going to loose it. I was lying on this table waiting for them to tell me there was no heartbeat. Mom being a nurse and working OB for many years was watching the screen as the girl was doing the sonogram. Ashley, the stonographer, wasn't say anything. Finally, mom said, "Is that our baby?" Ashley said, "Let me look at one more thing." My heart sank. Finally Ashley said, "Actually, these are your two babies. You are having twins!!!" I started crying. I was five and a half weeks pregnant and we got to hear the strongest little heartbeats.

Had a good pregnancy up until 24 weeks. Blood pressure starting going up and I began to swell. My doctor wanted to take me off work, but I begged him not too.

At 26 weeks I began spotting. Went to hospital, all was well. Went to the doc at 27 weeks and he said no more work. I begged, he said "NO MORE WORK." I knew I needed to do whatever to take care of my babies and myself. So I went to the house and was under house arrest. Hated every minute of it, but whatever it took to get these babies to 36 weeks I was gonna do it.

At 35 weeks blood pressure was still out of control. I was misrable!! Doc put me in hospital on Monday, August 18, 2008 and he felt like we would have babies on Tuesday. Tuesday morning doc came around and said my blood pressure was better and he was sending me home on complete bedrest for another week and we would have babies on August 25.

On August 25, 2008 at 1:18 p.m. Ronald Matthew Dodd (Matt) came into this world weighing in at 6 lbs and at 1:19 p.m. Magdalene Faith Dodd (Maggie) came into this world weighing in at 6.6 lbs. They were perfect!! Matt is named after Allen, Mr. Ronald (granddad), my dad (Big) and my brother Shane. They are all Ronald's. Maggie is named after my Mamaw, whom I miss dearly.

So to make a long story short, the Dodd household has changed so much. We do a lot of rocking, feeding and changing diapers now. So many people have asked me if we planned this or if I was taking meds to get pregnant. NO we didn't plan and NO I was not on meds. All I can say is that the Lord had a bigger plan for my family. And I am so proud that I am a MOM OF 3!

Giving it a Shot!!

I have been asked by several people to do this. I'm not very good at putting my feelings or thoughts on paper, but I enjoy reading so many blogs, that I thought, "What the heck, I'll give it a try." So please, bare with me.