Baby Bump!

A few weeks ago, some of our dearest friends were making their way back from visiting their family in Alabama and they made a slight detour to come see us way over here in SOWEGA. Adam and Dana have a little girl 6 months older than SJ and they also have the cutest little 2 year old girl on the planet. I'm not kidding. She's that cute. Needless to say, we were so excited that they stopped by for the afternoon! While they were here, Dana - who has a very talented knack for photography, snapped a few pictures of my ever-growing tummy. I was a bit hesitant at first, but with a little convincing I went through with it. I am truly glad that I have these pictures to document such a special time in our lives.. Thank you, Dana for doing these - You're amazing and I love you. To see more of Dana's amazing picture taking skills, click on that last link - you won't be sorry!

It's been so long since I updated with a current post, I'm going to have to do bullets to seperate the randomness... try to keep up. :)

• After much argument and debate and laughing and crying, we finally picked a baby name. Since we had SJ, we always joked around and said that we would name our second child (who was more of a myth than a reality) Sikes. That was George's Grand-daddy's last name. So, when it came time to pick a name, I just assumed that would be the family name from his side of the family that we would be using. Well, he thought otherwise. In George's family, the name George runs generations deep... there was a George Horace, a George Eston, and my sweet George Parrish... so, it only seems fitting that this little rascal have the name George too. Well, once we decided that, we also decided that we couldn't have both of his names come from one side of the family, especially since we aren't having any more kids. So then, I started digging in MY familing names and stumbled across a few that I really liked... but my favorite of all them was Raleigh. Raleigh is the name of my mother's father... who died when she was just a baby. So, that was it... George Raleigh Houston. We will call him Raleigh. Now, I know that there are people that just cringe when they hear of babies being called by their middle names... trust me, I've been called my middle name my whole life and I haven't died yet because of it. He'll be fine.
• Speaking of George's family, On Christmas Eve George's sweet grandmother fell and had to be taken to the hospital via ambulance. After she got there and a few tests were run, they discovered a 17 cm. tumor that had attached itself to her sciatic nerve. The tumor is lymphoma. When we asked her what her plan was and what she wanted to do... she chose chemo, again. George's grandmother is 88 years old and the strongest person that I have ever known. She is now on her second round of chemo and seems to be adjusting well. They've given her tons of pain medication for her comfort and she is fighting hard. Her words to me were, "I'm going to meet this baby" --- how do you argue with that? After more than 2 weeks in the hospital, she moved to a rehabilitation center in hopes that she can get back on her feet soon and will be able to continue the rest of her treatment from home. On a day to day basis, she is doing great and making little improvements all the while. When she had lymphoma 3 years ago, my prayer was for her to live long enough for Sarah Jane to remember her, God granted what I asked of him and so much more. He has given her 3 more wonderful... pain free, cancer free years... and now, here we are again. I'm lost as to what my prayer should be - but I have been praying for God to make her pain free, for her to not suffer any more than she has to, and for his will to be done. Her life is and forever will be an inspiration to all who know her - she is truly one of God's greatest gifts to the earth and to know her, I am blessed beyond measure. Keep her in your thoughts and prayers, please.
• As for the baby progress... we are getting it together little by little. After looking and thinking and talking about furniture for Raleigh's room and coming up with nothing... a sweet couple from our church told us that they had some furniture that they were going to give to goodwill but if we wanted to look at it, we were more than welcome. SO, we went to check it out just to see if we could use it. We were excited to find that they had a dresser, hutch, desk, chest, night stands, the whole nine yards. It had been painted white when their daughter had it in high school... so it won't need to be primed. Hopefully before the end of the month we can get it painted and in his room. I also have accumulated more than we could possibly ever use as far as "big baby stuff." We have been truly blessed... I had no idea how it was going to come together... but George was right when he said that it just would, and it has. I just needed to stop freaking out and let it.
• Sarah Jane got her report card this week. I'm so proud of her! She's an excellent student and brought home an EXCELLENT report card. Also, in Janey news... she is in a program at her school this week where she has the opening line. We've been saying it over and over and over again and she is going to do great.

I guess that about sums up our lives right now... work, SJ's school, Raleigh, SJ... we just stay busy. Hope that everyone is having a GREAT new year.