I meant to post this on mom’s birthday which was the 8th, but I totally forgot. Now that I have some free time I can catch up. The Saturday after Thanksgiving we threw my mom a surprise party for her 50th birthday. I first of all have to thank my sister Brooke for all of her hard work. She did so much. Since we were staying at mom and dad’s house it was difficult for me to do anything. Every time I would want to go somewhere…like Wal-Mart, mom always wanted to go with me. We also had help from others, Sherry Jones was a huge help and Twilla Legg put together a great slide show of pictures of mom and those who have had a special place in her heart. Bryan, Landon and Derrick were also a ton of help…setting up the video, blowing up lots of balloons, and anything else we requested.

On to the party…I had a feeling that mom knew about it. But then we she came in wearing a shirt that Deacon had spilled tea on and a hooded sweatshirt I knew that she had no clue.


One of the first things she said was look at what I’m wearing.


My sister made all of the food and she had a great spread.


Laura Green, who also made this cake, made her cake. Each tier was a different flavor and it was delicious. She does an amazing job.



If you are in the Wayne City area and need a cake you need to call her.

Here are some pictures of the family…somehow Bryan and Derrick are not in any of these pictures. I have a feeling they may have planned this.

Mom with her 3 favorite little guys.


The girls


Then comes the Mama’s boy!


Mom and her kids


The family


My mom and dad…they are the greatest.


Miss Ton Ton, as the little kids call her at the studio, helped mom open her presents.


I have to tell you that I wanted to get her some gag gifts to go along with her real gift. So, Bryan and I go to Wal-Mart one night and followed around this old guy and picked up everything that he did…lol.

We are so thankful for everyone who came out to help us celebrate mom’s birthday. She is such an amazing woman and always willing to step up to the plate to help someone out. She puts everyone else before herself and is such an inspiration to me. I hope I can be ½ the mom that she was to me. As great as a mom that she is she is even a more remarkable grandma. And seriously I can’t believe she is 50, she is the best looking, in shape 50 year old that I know.

Mom did let me know that the birthday celebration did not stop at this party. Her co-workers had put pictures all over her office building and decorated her office. Then when she got to the studio that night my sister had made signs and let her boys hang them up all over the studio. Mom said she knew that Cayden and McGwire had put them up because they were at waist height. I love it all!

Happy 50th Birthday Mom, we love you!

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It seems like the last 2 weeks we have been on an emotional rollercoaster. We found out that we were expecting again, but knew right away there were some issues. At that time I was an emotional wreck. I had several blood test and was put on medication and my doctor was pretty confident that it was going to be a successful pregnancy. However, on Wednesday we found out that it was an ectopic pregnancy. And unfortunately there was no option but to remove it because if we didn’t it would rupture and could be life threatening. Both us and our doctor had agreed to use medicine instead of surgery, because for several reasons. I had blood work again that day to make sure everything else was functioning properly and could handle the treatment.

I had not really had much pain, which to my understanding that is very rare, until yesterday morning. When we went to the doctor yesterday we had planned on going in, getting a shot and going home. However, since I had been having so much pain the doctor wanted to do another ultrasound. At that time we found out that it had almost double in size overnight. Because it had grown so much we had to weigh our options. The ectopic was bigger than what is recommended for the treatment and the risk for it rupturing was increasing since it was obviously growing at a very fast pace. We all decided it wasn’t worth the risk and decided to go ahead with surgery. We headed straight to the hospital from the doctor’s office.

Our friend Jennifer had offered to keep Deacon while we went to the doctor. We decided to take her up on that offer since the day before we were at the doctor’s office for 3 hours. You know you have great friends when you call them up and say, I know you only planned on having Deacon for a few hours, but can he stay all night. I knew he was in great hands and we are so thankful for them and their friendship.

We got settled into hospital and had some time to just relax and take it all in. We had some friends stop by to visit and pray with us. My parents headed down here as soon as we called them and told them I was having surgery, but since it is a long drive we already knew they would not be here in time for the surgery. Bryan and I were thankful that Josh and Kyle came to sit with Bryan before and during the surgery. Thank you Amy and Andrea for giving up your husband for a night. Thank you Tara for coming by last night, the flowers are beautiful. We seriously have the best friends.

The surgery went good. We had hoped that the doctor could just remove the ectopic and I could keep the tube. Once he was in there he said that it was close to rupturing and had to remove the tube. My doctor gave me the option of coming home last night, but since I didn’t get out of recover until almost midnight and was in a lot of pain it was best to stay overnight. I cannot imagine how I would have been able to come home last night. This morning I started taking pain medicine orally instead of through my iv so I was able to come home about noon.

Today I am sore but on pain medicine that is helping a lot. For the next 6 weeks I am supposed to be resting and recovering.

Unfortunately this also means that I can’t pick up Deacon or drive for at least 7-10 days. Which means I will be relying on Bryan and our family a lot for the next few weeks. Deacon is going to go home with my parents this week. He is kind of a mommy’s boy and I know it will be very difficult to not pick him up if he is here.

We greatly appreciate everyone’s thoughts and prayers during this difficult situation. We know that God is in control of our lives and that he has a great plan for our lives and our family. He has already blessed us more than we ever deserve. We put all of our trust in him alone. We place our lives in his hands and know that no matter what happens he will always hold us tight. God has given us peace and a ton of strength to get through all of this. I won’t say that we have not had rough days, because we have. But once again we are reminded that God is in control and it seems like I have to be reminded of that often. Even when we disagree with and want to take the control from his hands we have to remember that his plan always prevails.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3:5-6



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Since we hadn’t seen the Halstead's for a very long time Heather and I had planned a play date for Friday. But then Heather had a great idea to push it back later into the evening so the dads could join us. We had a great time catching up with them and seeing sweet little Amelia.

When I told Deacon that Amelia was coming over he wanted to put on his business sock, ha. Only some of you will get that.


Most of the evening they played separately.



Deacon is not good with sharing his toys. As soon as Amelia would play with a toy he wanted it, even if it was a toy he never plays with. He totally has the only child syndrome.

They ended up playing together or at least near each other.


On another note, I keep saying I think Deacon is about to outgrow his changing table. But because it is so convenient we keep on using it. And let’s face it he looks so cute on it…


But recently he just wants to do this when we put him on there.

So I have been changing diapers and clothes while he lays in this position. I figure it is easier to do it like this because...1. he does not fight me and 2. he thinks it is so funny. And I never get tired of hearing his little laugh.

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Once again it is time to play catch up. We have been quite busy since the Friday before Thanksgiving. That is when we set out for Evansville to go to Bryan’s parents for Thanksgiving. While we were there we spent time with family and had our 1st of many Thanksgiving dinners.

Bryan and I also tried out a restaurant that is there in Evansville that will soon be opening in Little Rock at the Pleasant Ridge Town Center and it was very good. Deacon got to spend the evening with his grandparents and Aunt Brandi and I know he had a lot of fun with them.

Grandpa Kent always has something new to show Deacon.




On Sunday we went to Grandma Dixie’s for another Thanksgiving dinner and got to see all of the Barnard’s. Deacon even got to play basketball.


Deacon loved playing with Eric.


Look he can even steal it from Daddy.


Todd even took him on a 4-wheeler ride around the yard.


Later that afternoon we took Deacon to MawMaw Tonya and PawPaw Ron’s house. Before Bryan and I headed to St. Louis to catch our flight we watched Deacon, along with his cousins, help get rid of the pumpkins.




Bryan and I had planned on flying back to St. Louis on Wednesday evening but due to a death in my family on Monday we changed our flights Monday night so that we could fly out first thing in the morning on Tuesday. Bryan had class and I had a work event on Monday so we didn’t get home until late anyway. I ended up leaving all of my dirty clothes in my suitcase and just packing more clothes. I figured I could just do laundry when we got to my mom’s. So if you seen me wearing the same clothes for the last week don’t worry I washed them, I just did not have much time to unpack and pack. Bryan and I are so thankful for my brother for taking us to the airport and picking us up, even when it required him getting out of bed entirely too early.

The 1 day we were gone Deacon had so much fun in Illinois. During his week visit there he enjoyed…

Sharing food with Maggie


Licked the beaters from the mixer. This is why my mom should not be left alone with him, ha.




Kissing the deer…I know this is so gross, leave it to my brother.


On Thursday we had two Thanksgiving dinners and ate way too much. I know Deacon is going to missing that food very soon.


Here he is with his cousins who are twins and 2 weeks older than he is.


Since my grandparents migrate South to their winter home today we had our Christmas with them as well on Thursday. My grandpa got this hat and let Deacon wear it.


Here is Deacon with some more of his cousins…can you tell Deacon is eating in this picture, ha.


We hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. We are so thankful that we were able to spend time with our family. We are so very blessed and thank God everyday for the blessing he has given us.

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Brandi took some pictures of us this past weekend. They turned out great considering Deacon did not want to sit or stand still for a single minute.

At one point we resorted to letting him throw rocks just so he would sit still. I know probably not a great thing to teach him but it somewhat worked.

Thank you Brandi and Happy Birthday!

I love this picture...can you tell that these two have so much fun together!


Our little family


My favorite


Such a cute little guy.


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