Monday, February 11, 2013

Mandy's 18th Birthday!

Okay, I'm a bit late posting this, but at least I'm taking the time now to post. Seems like I have been incredibly busy these past few days. I am going to update about Christian probably tomorrow so I won't go into the details of him right now.

This post is dedicated to my little sister, Mandy Anne Bullington! She just turned 18 on  February 7th. All of my siblings are growing up so fast! This year  she is a senior in high school! She was just recently crowned homecoming queen at her school, and she was so beautiful! I wish I could have been there to see her being crowned! Here are some pictures from that night.







 On her birthday she found out she was accepted into Pensacola Christian College in Pensacola, Florida! I don't know what she is majoring in yet though. I am so excited for her and we will both live in the same state once again! :) I am very happy for her as she enters into this new chapter in her life!

Mandy is such a kind person and a great sister! When she was little she had beautiful blonde curls and she was the only one to be born with 2 crowns on her head. She loved to look pretty and would dress up constantly. She always had some sort of accessory on :) And she loved to carry papers around in her purses. She loved Precious Moments and had several of the dolls. She is named after Mama, both of their middle names are Anne.

Mandy, if you read this I want you to know I love you with all my heart! And I am here for you if you ever need me! I will always remember that time after Mama died when I found you on the porch and we cried and talked together. You know, we will never lose Mama completely, she is in all of us. I want you to know I am so proud to  have you as my sister and I love every moment we can spend together. I always look forward to seeing all of you so much! 

I'm sorry this post is late, I was going to do this on her birthday but  it never happened.  I am going to end this post here, but I will post more pictures below! Goodnight everyone! :)

Paige

Mandy at our cousin's wedding

Mandy riding her bike

Carla, Mandy and me (I'm holding Mandy)

Mandy and me reading :)

Mandy and me

Mandy and me

Mandy

Mandy & Maria Rose

My wonderful sisters!

Mandy decorating for Christmas

Mandy and Carla on Christmas

Mandy and Maria on Christmas













Monday, February 4, 2013

Happy 13th Birthday James!

Hello! I want to go ahead and post this while I can and before I forget. Christian is nursing right now on his way to dream land. :) I began to write this post a little earlier, but I had to put it on hold since Christian was wanting my full attention. So I gave him a bath, folded clothes while he played, and now I am holding while he sleeps. So maybe I can get this post done now. :)


Today is my brother's birthday! His name is James Greg and today he is 13 days old! I just can't believe he is 13 now! I remember so clearly when he was born and now he is a teenager. I'm sure that's exactly how I will feel with Christian. Well, I'm feeling that way now with him already being 6 months old.


I am the oldest of 6 children, and James Greg is the youngest. I considered myself his second mom growing up. :) I was eleven, almost twelve when he was born. Mama always called him her miracle baby since she almost lost him while pregnant. I love him so much and would call him my baby. I eventually had to stop though because it embarrassed him lol. But he will always be. He was seven when I moved away from home so I'm sure he doesn't have a ton of memories of me being there. It breaks my heart but our age difference makes it that way. I know now most of what he knows of me is what others tell him, and I hope they are telling him the truth. I don't want him growing hating me because they don't agree with how I live. I just live like a normal person, I don't smoke, drink, do drugs or anything like that. I just hope he doesn't think I am evil.


It has been awhile since I have talked to him since I don't have a phone that is long distance, but I really miss hearing his voice! Last time he talked to me on the phone he told me he missed me and that broke my heart. Being here in Florida is bittersweet. I love living here with my little family, but I also miss my family in Georgia, too. I don't get to see them much anymore so I always cherish anytime I see or talk to them. I don't think they understand how much I love them and miss them. But I do with all my heart!


James, if you ever read this I just want you to know I love you so much! More than I could ever express! You are my baby brother, and I am so proud of you. You have gone so far and done so well even with losing Mama at such a young age. That has always broken my heart and I have asked God why more times than I can count. We all still needed Mama, but especially you. You were her baby, she loved you so much! She babied you a little more knowing you were the last one. I know since you told me that you don't have many memories of Mama being healthy. And I'm sure as you get older, more memories will slip. I want you to know though that I am always here whenever you need someone to talk to. Between me and our siblings we will keep Mama's memories alive in you. If you ever want to talk about her or need help remembering, I am always here. I love you so much and I hope to talk to you soon!


James was always so cute growing up! He had nicknames for all of us, and I was 
Duh-Duh. :) Whenever you would ask him his name, he would reply ME! :) He called horses Emily, whenever he saw one he would yell Emilys! He had such a cute way of talking, and he always put up with Carla and me playing house with him. :) He has always had a tender heart, and I love that about him.


I need to go ahead and end this post so Cody can use this computer. I am going to add some pictures of James that I got from his facebook since I personally don't have any recent ones. Hope everyone has a wonderful evening! And a very happy birthday to James!!!

Paige

















Videos of Christian!

Hi! :) As promised I am posting the videos that I took of Christian the other day! Sorry it's so dark in the videos, it always look more dark on the camera than it really is. Guess I just need to start turning on all the lights before I take a video of him. 

The first video just shows how cute and precious he is! :) He is such a happy and content baby and he loves to laugh and smile. If he gets around anyone new though he stares at that person, trying to figure them out haha. He is very observant! 







The other video is the new thing Christian does. He changes so often what his "new thing" is. He was loving his hands, but now it's all about his feet. He was trying to talk, saying a lot of vowel sounds, but then he got really quiet. Now his new thing is like a squeal. It's SOOO cute and I love hearing him do it. I have also learned to appreciate anything cute he does because it doesn't last long. Like I can't believe he is six months old already! And in six more months will be a year old! I don't even want to thing about that!




Well, he just woke up so now I back to typing with one hand lol. I will try and post another post later on today since today is my brother's birthday. See ya later! :)

Paige

Sunday, February 3, 2013

Christian and my mama!

Hello! I think it's been three days since my last post. I can't post on here everyday, but I will try to when I can. :) I was wanting to post a couple of videos I took of Christian the night before, but this computer has issues lol. I need to upload the videos on the desktop, but it's occupied most of the time on the weekends so I will wait until tomorrow to do that. I only got to get on the laptop for like ten minutes yesterday lol. Most of the time I just use my Ipod touch to access the Internet, and it would be extremely difficult to post from it since it's out of date. Anyway,  I just plugged in the laptop to post something on here, but I didn't really know what to post about since I really had no pictures from today or from the weekend. But my mom has been on my mind a lot this weekend so I decided to post about her! :)

My mama would have LOVED Christian!!! She absolutely loved all babies, but of course loved her babies more! :) I so, so, so wish she could see Christian. I have a feeling she can see him from Heaven, I just believe she can see us. But of course I would love for her to be here to see him in person! I knew one day I would have children, and that I would be upset she isn't here to see them. But until having Christian I really didn't know how strongly that feeling was going to be. I don't get upset hardly anymore, but there is just a strong ache deep down inside. I don't think it will ever go away unless something happened to my brain and I couldn't remember anymore. To know Christian will never personally know her, tears my heart into two pieces. I will always tell him about her so he can know how wonderful she was and how she would love him. It just hurts to know he can never know her like I did. That hurts more than anything! I miss her so much for myself, but now it hurts more for Christian than for me. If that makes any sense...

I just know for sure, without a doubt, my mama would have fallen in love with Christian. I know she would be here whenever she could to spend time with him, her little grandson. She would spoil him, love him, be all the things a grandma would be. Although I know she wouldn't be called grandma. She always like Mimi since her name is Miriam. And I know Christian would have loved her, too. Everyone loved my mama, it was just impossible not to. :) 

I know she can never be here again until I see her in Heaven one day, but sometimes the hurt is too great and all I can do is to just wish she was here. It's hard to explain, but sometimes I try to will her here. I know you probably think  I'm weird now, but it's hard to explain. I guess it's just like trying so hard to make it all a bad dream, that nothing happened and everything is fine. Like she never died, but that can never be again. And I know that and accept that. Just sometimes, it hurts really, really bad and nothing can help that. I just hope I can convey to Christian how wonderful she was and that he will love her, too!

Well, Christian is getting fussy now. He is sitting beside me on the couch and I keep handing him things to play with, but he is running out of patience now so I need to feed him. I just wanted to post something really quick while I had a few minutes! I hope all of you are doing great and I will see ya in the next post. :)

Paige


 My Mama (Miriam) pregnant with me

Me pregnant with Christian

Mama after having me in the hospital

Me after having Christian in the hospital

Mama and me!

Me and Christian!






Thursday, January 31, 2013

Christian's Birth Story!

Second day, second blog post! :) If only I would do this everyday! I will try though. :) I hope everyone  is well. I'm sitting here on the couch with my coffee and holding my sleeping baby, and of course typing with one hand haha. These posts take twice as long because of that, but I wouldn't trade it for the world!

Today I am going to make this post all about Christian's birth and all that went on with bringing him into this world. Before anyone freaks out, no gory details or pictures haha! 

When I found out I was pregnant, of course all I wanted to know was the gender of the baby...boy or girl? At my 20 week appointment, the doctor said the baby was a girl! I was so excited! Cody and I picked out a name, Caitlin Miriam Henderson and I started to collect girl things. Well, a month later at my next appointment, the doctor realized he had made a mistake. The baby was actually a boy! I was so shocked! I had already started to prepare for a girl and it was hard to wrap my head around that it was a boy instead. I wasn't upset, I was just shocked. It took us a little longer to pick out a boy name, but we finally decided on Christian Michael Henderson. It's a tradition in Cody's family to have the initials CMH. 

It seemed like time slowed wayyy down when I was pregnant. I didn't think my due date would ever arrive! I didn't have a difficult pregnancy at all, just little things about it I was tired of. Like the most horrible heartburn ever! And it seemed harder to breathe being that big. And of course trying to get comfortable haha! Well, my due date finally came! It was July 30, 2012. Still no baby! A week after my due date I met with the doctor again and after having an ultrasound done, he made the decision to induce me since the ultrasound showed the baby being about nine pounds. He scheduled me to come in on August 8th to start the inducement. That day finally came and we had to wait around all day for the hospital to call us to come in (weird scheduling they have), and we never received a call. At around 8:30pm I called the hospital and they had forgotten about me! They told us to come in so we loaded up our bags and went. Talk about being nervous! I knew pain was coming and knowing that was frightening.    But I kept telling myself it would pass and it would be worth it. I just don't like pain lol.

When we got to the hospital, we had to wait for them to sign me in and all. When we were sitting in the waiting room, this really nice lady kept offering us pizza and sushi she had. Someone she knew was  having a baby and she kept insisting we take a piece. I finally did because I was afraid of hurting her feelings if I refused anymore. We finally got to our room, and of course they had me put on a hospital gown. Well I'm shy so I finally got it tied to where I was all covered, but when the nurse saw that she untied it and put it on me where I was mooning everyone haha. I really hated that, but little did I know after giving birth you have no privacy left lol. Before they hooked me up to the monitors, Cody and I started taking pictures. I had bought new batteries for the camera because I wanted to take loads of pictures. We were able to take four pictures before all the batteries went dead. What a disappointment! The nurse found us some batteries right before he was born, and I was so thankful! But here are the pictures we took before I was hooked to the monitors.
                                      We were both super happy!


                          Cody comparing the size of a coke can to my belly lol


Since I wasn't dilated, they had to prepare my cervix for the pitocin so I had to have a medication for my cervix first through the night. Oh it made me cramp the whole night. Was not fun at all! The next day around 12 noon they started the pitocin and I had that drip all day. After giving me the pitocin, I started having painful contractions, but not where I couldn't focus or anything. They were painful, but not as painful as they were going to get lol. We kept waiting and waiting, I wasn't dilating very fast so trying to bring him into the world was a very long drawn out process. He was comfortable in there I guess lol, he did not want to come out! The doctor came in later that evening around 6:30ish and broke my water. After that my contractions got bad! I was trying my best to have him naturally without any medications, but it was so hard. The nurse gave me something in my IV to help  with the pain some, but it didn't touch it. I was so miserable and Cody hated seeing me in pain. I remember having to get up and pee and the nurse helped me and I did it right in front of her. I did not care lol! I was kind of out of my mind. I don't know if the pain medication did it or if it was the pain itself. I couldn't focus on anything except the pain. I just remember how bad it hurt, and I kept calling out to Cody and telling him it hurt. The nurse kept asking me if I wanted an epidural and I finally gave in and told her yes. I guess it would have been around 11ish or 12 that night that I got the epidural and I think I was around 6cm dilated. The rest of the night was easy compared to that, and I was able to get a little bit of sleep. Early that morning I had intense pressure so I called the nurse in and she checked me and I was fully dilated. She had me push once and I was ready. I pushed mostly with her, the doctor came in at the end of it. The nurse said I was a natural pusher, and that I should teach a class. I was very flattered then but now I think she may have just been encouraging me. I don't know lol. As soon as he came out, they laid him on me, and I became overcome with emotion. There is truly nothing like it! I couldn't  speak, all I could do was stare at him with tears in my eyes. He was the most beautiful baby I had ever seen, he was just perfect! I gave him to Cody when I had to deliver the placenta, and they cleaned him up while  I was being tended to. He was 9 pounds and 5 ounces and 20 3/4 inches long. He was born on August 10, 2012 at 6:25 am. When I got him back, I didn't ever want to let him go! He was and is the most precious gift I could ever receive!

Later  on they took us to another room which we stayed in until we went  home. Family members came to us and Christi!an and I was just in love the whole time. I also fell deeper in love with Cody as we shared in our son's birth. I recommitted myself to him while we were there, and since then our love has only gotten stronger! I can't begin to say how thankful I am to where I am today and my little family God blessed me with. Some people think I make all bad choices, and I'm not perfect. But I believe I am where I am supposed to be. I know people freak out that Cody and I are not married, but no one should judge except for God! We are planning on getting married, but that requires money so we haven't been able to yet. Diapers and necessities have to come first! Plus, the way I see it, getting married is only a piece of paper. Cody and I have committed ourselves to each other, and we are a family here and in God's eyes. God doesn't need a piece of paper to prove that. When we are able to financially we will get married. Until then people needs to stop pointing fingers at me and at themselves instead.

Anyway, Christian has been my greatest joy and I can't believe six months have already passed by. All the time I tell him not to grow up too fast! I love  him with all my heart and will forever! I need to end this post so I can get some things done today. I hope everyone has a splendid day!

Paige

The pictures didn't upload in the order I wanted, but these are the pictures after his birth starting with this one after he came out and they laid him on me!