HAPPY BIRTHDAY AARON!!!!

Exactly 17 years ago today, I had our first son - we named him Aaron which means Bearer of Light. I pray every day that he will be a light to this dark world. He was born at 8:22 p.m. and weighed 8 pounds 11 ounces. Out of all my births, he was the most painful. We didn't know whether he was a boy or a girl. We really felt like he was going to be a girl. I knew Randy wanted a son so bad so probably was convincing himself it was a girl so he wouldn't be a little disappointed. As for me....I wanted a girl. I wanted a house full of girls and no nasty, dirty little boy who likes to bug his sisters. That's until I had a boy of my own. I can't even describe the love I have for him. If you are a parent of both a boy and a girl you will understand what I'm talking about. There is a special, different kind of bond between a mother and son - just like there is between a daddy and his daughter. I never imagined having a little boy could be so wonderful. Yes, they are dirty, nasty and like to bug their sisters. But I love every minute of it!!! I love their chubby dirty little hands and their hugs and kisses. I love watching them play ball. Now Aaron is grown and now I get to squeeze those hard muscely arms and still love those hugs and kisses (even though they aren't as much!!)

This baby inside of me was very strong. Out of all the babies, he kicked and punched the hardest. At times, it would almost take my breath away. I knew whatever this baby was, it was going to be STRONG!!! When I went to bed that night 17 years ago, the baby was kicking and punching harder than ever. I could hardly take it. My last words to Randy before I went to sleep were, "This baby is kicking so hard, it's going to break my water and my body isn't going to be ready." Sure enough in the middle of the night - BAM - one very hard kick and there goes my water. I called the hospital and they told me not to come in until I was having contractions. I waited 2 hours and still no contractions - nothing was happening. They told me to come in and they gave me Pitocin which causes you to have contractions. I was dilated to a 0 now so I was really not doing anything. I had such strong contractions it was unbelievable. They said they couldn't give me an Epidural until I was dilated to a 5. I have always had very long labors. Even baby number 7 took me 20 something hours to have her. I went all day long in excrutiating pain. They wouldn't help me. Finally that night when I was so dilirious in pain I wanted to shoot myself, they said I could have an Epidural. They paged the Anesthegeologist. He was under the hill and his pager wouldn't pick up. I begged, I pleaded, I bribed for SOMEBODY to please give me the Epidural. Nobody could give it to me but him. Oh the pain, the pain. I screamed, I cried. I finally got to a 10 and still no epidural. You could hear my screams all over the hospital. Probably all over Natchez!! The Doctor and nurses were getting mad at me and kept telling me to quit screaming - I would scare the baby. At this point, I didn't care. I was out of my mind in pain. Finally at 8:22 p.m. a precious little boy was born. He was worth every scream, every tear, and every pain. His Daddy was so happy to have a son. He is also the first to carry on the "White" name.

I have loved every minute of these 17 years with Aaron. And yes, he is still strong. Not only physically, but also strong willed. He is smart, athletic and he is mine!!

I love you Aaron and Happy Birthday!!!

Happy New Years Everybody!!

I haven't updated since Christmas. We had a very nice one I might add!! We got to add another stocking to our fireplace mantel this year - one for Chad. So now we have 10 stockings on our mantel. We have a fireplace in every room so we will have plenty more room to add more stockings in the future for spouses....our grandchildren......great-grands....no telling how many stockings we will have!!!!!

Santa had a very hard time putting together Benjamin's 8 in 1 game table. If it had not been for Chad, I think the table would have been thrown out the door - no kidding!!! So thanks, Chad!! They were up until 2:00 in the morning putting that thing together.

My happy news for the day is that Brooke found me an artifical tree at Hobby Lobby. No more tree disasters to experience. It was a $350.00 tree that she got for $98.00 - that includes tax too!! I wish I could put it up this year since I only got to enjoy our tree this year for such a short time. My only fear now is that when we set it up next year - the lights won't work!!!

This is the last day of the year. Tomorrow starts a new beginning. A time to think about changes you would like to make....things you will do differently.....goals to set.....attitude adjustments.....so many things. May God bless all of you this coming new year!!

One of the best Christmas trees yet!!!

I can't believe how our little Charlie Brown tree turned out. It's absolutely beautiful!! I'm so so so so happy!!!. Randy was so clever in his idea of putting it on top of a box. Actually it was a book shelf he made that I didn't even know about. I have plans for that book shelf that he had hidden away. - after Christmas is over! It's laying face down with a maroon blanket on top of the box. All my ribbons and stuff are gold and maroon. The tree is absolutely gorgeous. Then sitting on top of that maroon box and all around the tree on the floor are my black and white presents that are wrapped out of Brooke's wedding reception paper....well....you can't help but just stare at it. I have wrapped the presents in maroon and gold ribbon. I was wanting to buy a huge tree after Christmas, but I love this idea and it's so different!!! I wish all of you could see it!!

We are having Randy's side of the family over at our house on Sunday for our Christmas celebration. I have the house looking so good!! Bethany said, "Momma...we going to get the house all cute-seed up in Christmas style?" She is so much like Hannah it's kind of scarry!!! Well we got it all cute-seed up for sure.

I'm in the Christmas spirit......pretty much finished with all my shopping except for stockings......and I've been thinking and meditating on the "true" meaning of Christmas. I pray that all of you have gotten to that point also. Have a great weekend!!

My tree story lives on......

I can't believe I still have a story to tell, but I guess I do. We put the fake tree up last night after Randy got home from Jackson. It was late but I want a tree up before Christmas gets here!!! The tree came in 3 parts. Can you believe the lights wouldn't work??? I tried every kind of connection possible but nothing worked. The very very bottom part worked and that was it. Second of all this tree looked really weird. I can't believe this tree was too big for Christy's mother's house. The top of the tree is eye level with me. It's short and squatty. I called Christy and asked her if there was a piece missing because it looks funny and the lights won't work either. I hated to sound ungrateful and tried not too, but I was kind of sad about the whole thing. When you are used to having a 10 foot tree that fills up the corner and now I can see over the top of the tree.....well, it was kind of depressing. She said it was only 3 parts and for me to just string some lights on it. So that's what I did. I put lights on top of lights that don't work. The tree is full of wires and bulbs.

We haven't decorated our little tree yet. We are going to set it on top of a bench to give it more height and put a blanket or something around the bench to disquise it. I officially dedicated this year as our "Charlie Brown Christmas."

I bought Hannah a cute little 3 foot tree for her room for $8.00. I bought some bright shiny turqoise material to put on the bottom for her tree skirt. It's decorated with all her Nutcracker ornmanets and hot pink ornaments. I made a gold bow for the top and wrapped the gold ribbon around it also. It is absolutely BEAUTIFUL!!!! She is so happy!! It is sitting proudly in the corner in front of her fireplace. On the mantel above the tree is her framed picture of her as Clara with nutcracker dolls next to the picture.

That part of my day has been good.

Tonight we will get the fake tree on the bench and get it all decorated. I'm using Brooke's black and white paper that we used for the reception tables to wrap all my presents with. I bought some maroon and gold ribbon to tie on all the packages. I think it's going to be so pretty. We have 3 different designs of the black and white paper. My favorite is the polka dot paper. We will have a memory of her wedding also - and this will be Brooke and Chad's first Christmas. It will make it more special that I'm using the paper in her wedding.

Report on Aaron's arm. It's not broken. He has a pretty big brace on it. He has to go to physical therapy 3 times a week. Absolutely no baseball for 4 weeks. I think I will kind of miss washing his hair for him in the sink - it was our bonding moment!!!

Hopefully this is the end of my tree story. I can't imagine anything else going wrong. This has certainly been a memorable Christmas.

Update to last update

In my last post I mentioned that our crooked tree was up but not decorated because it was....well.....crooked. We always get a very large tree - usually about 10 foot. It takes 3 people up on ladders to decorate it. We finally got it decorated Friday night. It took us 5 hours!!!!! It was so pretty when we finished it and we got to enjoy it for about 20 minutes before going to bed. The next morning we heard a crash.....and then a bunch of wailing from Benjamin. Our tree had fallen over and lots of my ornaments had busted in a million of pieces. Benjamin cried, "Christmas has been cancelled!!!" Because our tree was gone, he thought he wouldn't get any presents either. Randy came home from his deer camp to pick it back up and see if he could get it supported better. It was hopeless. We had to take everything off of it and drug the tree outside to our "burn pile". So now, here we are...about 10 days until Christmas....and we still don't have a tree. My sister-in-law gave me an aritifical tree to borrow but forgot the stand. Hopefully we can get the stand tomorrow and I can get a Christmas tree back up. I still haven't wrapped a single present either.

Update on Aaron's arm: he came home from school Thursday begging me to take him to the Doctor because his arm was hurting so bad. It really hadn't hurt much until that day. I took him to the After Hours Clinic and they did x-rays. Ends up his arm was cracked in 2 different places. They put a splint on it and we have an appointment in Jackson tomorrow to get it looked at.

Exams are this week for the kids and then it's Christmas break - yea!!!

I just noticed that Brooke changed by background scenary - I like it - Thanks Brooke!!

Shalom (that's for you Brooke)

It's been a long time......

Yes, I haven't updated in quite a while. It's getting quite busy over here......tis the Christmas season. That's the one thing I hate most about Christmas - all the busyness. I would just love to focus completely on what our Lord and Saviour did for us in sending His Son down here to earth so that we could have life and do nothing else but center everything I do around that and bring joy to others by finding ways to give and serve......but once I again I get all caught up in the hustle and bustle. GRRRR!!!!

Thanksgiving was really nice. We spent it with Randy's family.

We have had our tree up for over a week now and it still remains completely naked. It is sooooo crooked. We have it propped up but it has still fallen twice. I am waiting on Randy to make it more steady in some sort of way before I start decorating it. I have started decorating the house though.

Randy and I are driving to Jackson tonight to "try" and finish up our shopping. Brooke has offerred to fix us supper - yea!!! I can't wait.

Aaron has hurt his arm really bad. He was playing football and hyper-extended it. He can't move it and it's in a sling. So...baseball lessons have been cancelled until further notice.....

Hope everyone has a great week!!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!!

I've been blowing and going for days and haven't had a chance to update. The Nutcracker was gorgeous!!! Hannah did such a good job. I got to see every single performance. She is so graceful and quite the ballerina. When she came home Saturday night from her last performance as playing "Clara", her toe was bleeding really bad. When she came to show me, it was dripping on the floor!!! Instead of freaking out about it, she was so excited. She said, "Mom, this is just like the movies. If your toe bleeds, that means that you are doing everything just like you are supposed too. This is what a ballerina hopes for...dreams for...." So we took several pictures of her bloody toe!!!

We enjoyed having my Mother here. Her blood pressure was lower than it's ever been since her stroke. So I'm glad she was relaxed and had a good time. I took her back to the Baton Rouge airport yesterday.

Randy, Aaron, and Daniel are at the hunting camp. Between the 3 of them, I hope one of them gets a deer. We have sure enjoyed eating Benjamin's deer. He is feeding our large family!!

The rest of us will be driving to Jackson this afternoon to spend Thanksgiving with Randy's side of the family.

I hope all of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving. We have much to be thankful for!!