Happy Birthday Charlie!!

I can't believe my baby boy is now a one year old. We had his party yesterday to celebrate and it was only fitting to have a Dallas Cowboy themed party since I found out I was pregnant with him right after a cowboy game last year. He is destined to be a Dallas Cowboy fan for life. We had a good party with friends and family. Then watched the cowboys play. It was a good day. Abby was so sweet and helped Charlie with all his presents but now thinks they were all for her. Luckily Charlie doesn't know the difference yet. I'm sitting here thanking God for how blessed I am to have two beautiful, healthy children. Being a pediatric nurse and taking care of very sick kids, I know how blessed I am that mine don't have any problems. Today is one of my long-time patient's b-day. He is three and lives with a brain condition that could cause him to die at anytime. As a mother, I just don't think I could deal with that. I know first hand that God gives us the strength to get through things but having a sick child or worse knowing that everyday is truly a gift because you could lose them at any moment is just too much for me. I don't mean to sound so negative when I'm writing about my son's party. I just know how truly blessed I am to have my two kiddos. They are God's gift to me and I hope I never forget how blessed I am to have them and be their mother. I thank you God for not only giving my children healthy bodies but thank you for using them to remind me how much you love me by making me their mother. And I pray for all the mothers out there who have sick kids or have lost a child. God is with you and has his arms around you and your child. God Bless and hug those little ones. They grow up too fast.

Happy Birthday to me!!

One more year of being in my twenties then I hit the big 30! I can't believe I'm 29 years old. I know that's not old but I do have to say that I'm starting to feel my age. I guess I feel like that because Chaz and I just started Marine Fitness Boot camp and I'm so sore that some days I can't even put on my underwear by myself. It's really making me feel all the aches and pains of getting older. I did have a pretty good day despite getting pulled over for speeding on my birthday on my way to boot camp at 5:30 am. I did manage to get out of it but that it wasn't the way I wanted to start off my 29 birthday. I went to work then Chaz and the kids took my out to dinner at one of my favorite places, Cheese Cake Factory. It was a good day and I'm even more excited about my birthday gift. I asked for a wii fit. They are really hard to get right now so I don't have one yet but Chaz is working on it and hope to have it soon. I figured he shouldn't be the only one having all the fun with the wii. Anyway, things are going good. I wish the rain would stop. Chaz and I put up the kids' swing set on Sat. and they haven't been able to enjoy it since it's rained for 3 days straight. Well, I included some pics of my birthday and of the new swing set or what I like to call, the thing that is going to wear my 2 year out.

Happy Anniversary to us!!

I can't believe that Chaz and I have been together 7 years now. August 11, 2001 feels like yesterday. We had a beautiful wedding at Chapel on the Hill at ACU. ACU will always be very special to us because that's where we meet, fell in love, where Chaz proposed to me and where we got married. I loved everything about our wedding except it was the hottest day in history. I remember sweat pouring down my back as we said our vows and then we thought it would be good to ride in the back of an old Ford car after the wedding. I was so hot that I remember my dress being stuck to me. Chaz had to pull it off. But it was a beautiful wedding. Our story of how Chaz proposed is so sweet. I do have to say he put a lot of thought into it and it's one of my top favorite moments. It all started when we were seated across from one another in Biology class. After a couple of days, Chaz started up a conversation. He was very sweet and asked to share my book since he had left his at home. I, of course, said yes. After a week or so of talking in class, he asked me to a social event for his fraternity. We then fell in love and when Chaz proposed 2 years later, he took me back to where it all started. He blind folded me and led me to the classroom where we had met. He sat me down in the same chair that he sat in and put me into my old seat. He read a poem that he had written then got down on one knee and popped the question. After I said yes, he then confessed that when he asked to borrow my book, two years earlier, that he had is the whole time. He just wanted a reason to be close to me. HOW SWEET IS THAT!! That my favorite story of the two of us. Chaz, I love you so very much. You have blessed my life in so many ways and continue to sweep my off me feet. I look forward to celebrating many more anniversaries together. I love you and thank you for making my life feel so special.

Ranch weekend and Charlie walking

I can't believe my sweet baby boy is walking at 10 months old. For some kids this maybe a normal time to start walking but I was use to Abby who at 10 months was just starting to crawl and didn't start walking till 15 months. I guess the saying is true, very kid is different. It's so fun to watch him. He is so excited and we all cheer him on. I also can't believe that I have to start thinking about his birthday soon. Man, has this last year flown by.
On another note, we had such a good time at the ranch with my family. It was a great time to get together and remember Michael. Every time I was out on the four wheeler, all I could think about was how much he would of loved it out here. We also celebrated my sister Cayce's birthday. Her birthday isn't till next month, a day before mine, but she is leaving for boot camp the first of August. Yes you read it right my sister Cayce is joining the US Coast Guard. I couldn't be more proud. She is having to leave her son, who is Charlie's age, for 2 months. She is stronger than me. I couldn't do it. She knows this will better her family and that God has lead her to do this. Please pray that she has the mental and physical strength to get through it. We had so much fun watching her son, Isaac and Charlie play together. Abby also enjoyed having to boys to boss around. She was really sweet and made sure both were feed. I have to watch her closely when she's eating something because she gives Charlie a bit. I caught her giving him peanuts the other day. At least we know he isn't allergic to peanuts now. It's sweet that she shares and it's hard to tell her that she has to share some things but not others. Some how I'm sure Charlie will survive. At least now he can walk away from her.

Michael

This Thurs., the 10th, it will have been a year since Michael took his life. The pain is still so fresh but I know he is at peace and finally happy. I'm so blessed to have had him in my life for 26 years and can't wait to see him again in Heaven. Michael, you will always have a special place in my heart and my love for you is still so very strong. I promise to never forget all the wonderful memories we had together and all the fun we had as kids. You lived through so very much and I've learned so much from you and your life. I'm just so sad that my kids won't know their Uncle Michael until they too see you in heaven. God is so good and I know that you are with him. I love you and miss you. My life will never be the same without you here.

Hello!

I know it's been forever since I've updated but these two little ones keep me running. Things have been going good. We're potty training Abby which is a day to day challenge. Some days she's great and others I just give up and put her in a pull up. Charlie took his first steps last week. He laughed the whole time. He was so excited and we were so proud. Abby cheered him on the whole time. I was glad that Chaz was home and we were able to get it on tape. I can't believe he will be 10 months old on Thurs. It brakes my heart that I have to start thinking about his one year birthday already. We've been busy going to the pool all summer. I just love our community pool. It's not just a pool but a water park. We just finished swimming lessons with Abby and she did pretty good. She's now jumping in and swimming to the side.
One another note, next week is going to be a hard one. The 10th of July will be a year since Michael died. I've already had some bad days recently and I know next week will be hard. I'm hoping to spend some time with my mom and sisters next week so we can lean on each other. I can't believe that it's been a year already. I can remember every detail of that day. I am starting a support group on the 13th of July. It's for family survivors of suicide and I think it will be good for me. I'm not at all excited about going but I know it's time to deal with it. I miss him so very much but know that he is finally happy and at peace. I just pray he knows how much we miss him and much he was loved. I know that God has His arms around him and that one day I will too. Michael, you are so truly missed!!
I found out some shocking news about my sister, Cayce. She joined the US Coast Guard and starts boot camp in August. I can't believe she is really doing it. I'm also so very proud of her. She has a lot of strength to leave her 10 month old son and go to this. She feels that God has showed her that this is to better her and her family. I just pray that He continues to give her strength and protection. Anyway that's it for now.

update

I've been so busy with the house that I haven't blogged in awhile. So here is a quick up date. Charlie is now crawling everywhere. I can't believe it! He turned 8 months old on Sat. I can already tell that he isn't going to let anyone tell him that he's too small or too young to do anything. He already wants to do big boy stuff. Abby was slow to do everything, which was just fine with me. I loved that she stayed my little baby girl for so long. Charlie is different in every way. I've been working some. I love that I can work whenever I want and make a little extra money. I also love that one of my best friends, Chesley, can watch the kids the days I work. She doesn't live that far and it works out great. Getting them there by 7:00 am is a challenge but here lately Abby's been waking up around 6:30 am anyway, which as been a beating. Charlie sleeps till 7:30 and Abby been getting up before the sun does. Some days I'm up at 6:00 with her. It's hard not to be bitter all day when my day starts that early. It won't be that bad if she took a good nap but she hasn't done that lately either. I don't know what her deal with sleeping is. I can just hope that it's just a phase. Anyway back to better things. Chaz got a promotion at work and is now a Senior Account Executive. I'm so proud of him. Anyway that's it for right now.

My big Girl!

This last week Abby has taken a big step into wanting to go potty, so off we went to buy the little potty and some big girl panties. I really thought she would be more difficult about the whole process but as she usually does has proven me wrong. She goes almost every time we put her on it and a couple of times she goes all by herself. I really wasn't ready for her to do this. I think I wanted her to remain a little girl a little longer and changing diapers doesn't really bother me. But Abby decided that it was time. We are still in pull ups but I'm sure she will decided that she needs to be out of those too before too long. We also moved her out of her crib and into her big girl bed. Once again, I thought this would be difficult and once again she has proven me wrong. From the very moment we put her in it she has done great. Only getting out one time to come downstairs in the middle of the night and it didn't take much coaching to get her to go back up stairs and into her bed. She just keeps surprising me and I'm just amazed at how wonderful she is. I just don't want her to grow up too fast. She already has told me to leave her alone in her room and shut the door behind me. She's not supposed to do that till she's a teenager! I'm just so proud of the wonderful little girl she is and so blessed to be her mom.

Celebrity Look-a-likes

http://www.myheritage.com/collage

Happy Valentine's Day!

We've had a fun day so far. Abby and I are planning to make dinner and cupcakes for dad. She thinks she is such a helper and in some ways she is. For example I had her give Charlie a bottle the other day. It was too cute! Half of it was on him but I'll have her trained soon. Anyway I mainly wanted to post some pics of our Valentine's party. It was a lot of fun, crazy but fun. I remember taking pics of all the little ones last year and they were all still babies. Now they are all so grown up. What fun all these kids are going to have together. I just love that there's so many that are close in age and now all of our round two babies will be as well. We'll see how many make it with round three. You can count me out of that for awhile. Anyway, Happy Valentine's Day!!

Life with two kids

Well things are finally calming down around here. We're finally not living out of boxes and I even managed to paint Charlie's room. My current project is the kid's playroom. I really wanted to do something fun without making it look cheesy. Finding time to paint is more of a challenge than I thought it would be. As many of you know I'm not a patient person so coming to the realization that it's going to take time to get this house like I have pictured in my head is driving me crazy. I know it will all come together some day but I'm ready for it all to be done. Anyway, speaking of crazy, my two year old is really testing my patience lately. She wines about everything. I know she's a girl but seriously I don't know how we are going to live together when she's a teenager. Today I had to put her down for a nap hours earlier than normal because I couldn't take the winning anymore. Any suggestions on what to do. I've tired everything. On a good note, she has been good about everything else. She is such a great big sister. Her new favorite thing to do is play tea party with Charlie and I think Charlie really likes it too. He will even hold the cup. I can't wait to see them really playing together. It's going to bring back memories of my brother and me playing. We used to have so much fun together. Charlie is doing good too. He's growing so fast and I can't believe he will be 5 months old next week. We all just got well from a bad cold which threw him completely off his schedule of sleeping through the night. Now we are up all night long. I'm hoping that ends soon. I'm also thinking about going back to work soon. I really don't want to but my job is so easy to schedule and is a dream job to have when you have kids that it would be dumb not to go back. I'm so blessed that I would only have to work either one day a week or one weekend a month. It can't get better than that. I also have to say something about my sweet husband. He has been great lately at helping me with the house and the kids. I'm so very blessed to have him. He puts up with a lot from me and takes it so well. We've had some crazy moments the last 7-8 months and he has been so wonderful. Thank you God for placing him in my life!

All I want for Christams is a new house!

Well we're moved into our new house. We love it and feel so blessed. It's been a crazy month of looking at over 20 houses and putting offer after offer but God knew just what we needed. We love the neighborhood too. There are lots of kids and tons of fun stuff to do. I can't wait till summer and use the water park that's part of our neighborhood. We've already met some of our neighbors and everyone is so nice. I just feel so overwhelmed by how God's placed us in such a safe and perfect home for us. It's amazing what he will do when you hand over control. The kids have also been so great with everything. Abby adjusted faster than I thought she would. She has been so wonderful lately but having a two year old is definitely a patience tester. Some days I wonder where did my sweet little girl go. But she does make me laugh and she is so good with Charlie. The other day I found her reading the Bible to him and then she kissed him gently on the head. It made me tear up. I've always prayed that my kids would have a heart for Jesus and I see that in Abby. I'm so proud of her. Charlie is also such a good baby and the smiliest baby I've ever seen. I've always gotten comments from people that Abby was the smiliest baby but I do think Charlie has her beat. He will just giggle at anything. It's so cute! He is growing up too fast already. I love this age and I wish I didn't know how fast it goes. I'm trying to soak up every once of it before he is running around into everything. I did have to give up one of my furry babies this week. I gave Fletch, the minicher pincher, to my mom. They've been wanting him for awhile and I finally gave in. I just couldn't take care of two kids and two dogs anymore. It's been like having 4 kids in the house. I am sad though. We've had Fletch for 4 years and he was my first baby. He even slept with us. I hope he misses us as much as I miss him. At least I'll get to see him when I go to my mom's. We still have Buck. I think he misses his little buddie too. I'm just waiting for Abby to ask where Fletch is. I've only cried about it a couple of times. I'm such a baby! Hope everyone had a great Christmas and have a blessed New Year. I can't wait to see what 2008 holds for us.

Abby's 2nd Birthday

My little girl is turning 2 on Thurs. the 13th. We had her Elmo party with Chaz's family this weekend. She loves Elmo and was so excited to see all the Elmo stuff. The cake was adorable. I can't believe she is that old already. She is so unbelievably amazing. I love looking into those big brown eyes and watching her discover new things everyday. Don't get me wrong, she can be very challenging but I just love spending my days with her. She makes me laugh more and more the older she gets. I'm just so blessed to be her mom. Happy Birthday, my sweet angel. May God bless your life as you have blessed mine. I love you!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

We had a great thanksgiving. The kids, my sister and I went to my mom's and had a lot of fun together. My other sister, Cayce and my half sister, Kelli with all their kids met us there too. It was a house full. It was also the first time we've had all the kids together. There were a total of 5 under the age of 2. Abby being the oldest, then Kennedi(16 months) and all the boys who are 2.5 months old. We were crazy and decided to take them all for shopping the day after Thanksgiving. All was well until we left all the kids at home with Gran to do some more shopping and all 5 kids were crying at the same time. All in all it was a great thanksgiving. On another note, we made an offer on a house. We are very excited and hoping that this is it. We have to be out of this house by the 21st of December so I better get packing. I will tell more about the house after we know that we got it. Please pray that this is it!

Updates!

Well life at the Railsback's house is very busy. Over the past 2 weeks I've started keeping my neighbor's little girl who is only 4 weeks older than Charlie. Having two infants in the house with a toddler running around is the craziest thing I've ever done. Some days it's all I can do not to pull all my hair out. I will say that it's getting easier every week. On top of that we decided to sell our house. I know, I know I've completely lost my mind! I don't think I could squeeze one more thing into my life. We haven't started looking at houses yet but plan on staying in the area. We've had our house on the market for one week and already have one offer. I can't believe it's happened so fast. With how bad the market is right now, I had prepared myself to be here another 6 months or so. But it looks like we may be moving very soon. I'm excited about getting into a bigger place and having space for all the toys that have taken over my house. I also can't wait to decorate a new place. I love decorating! I hate moving! I don't know how I'm going to do it. Knowing that Chesley did it with 3 little ones gives me some hope but I know I don't have all the energy she has. Trying to keep my house looking perfect to show has been another challenge. I'm not that messy but I'm not one to make my bed everyday either so this has been a challenge. I'm hoping at the very least it will help me to be a neater person. Well, I have one little one waking up and I'm sure the other 2 are soon to follow. There's never a dull moment.