Here are some pictures of this past weekend.

Our weekend started good but ended with a sick baby girl. We woke up Saturday and drove to Lake City to see my cousin Brooke and her new baby Tripp. He was so precious! EK could not keep her hands off of him. She wanted to rub his head, his hands, his face, and his belly. She wanted to hold him too but we thought that was not a good idea considering she carries her baby dolls around by their hair. When we got home I put her down for a late nap and she woke up around 5 pm. She felt warm so I checked her temperature and it was 102.6. We had plans that night to go to a 40th birthday party for our neighbor and Ms. Hawkins and MacKenzie were going to keep Ella Katherine. Ms. Hawkins teaches with Seth and MacKenzie is EK's adopted big sister. I am not exagerrating when I say that 50% of the times that we have asked them to keep her, she has gotten a fever and we have had to cancel. So we gave her motrin and her fever came down some and we decided to continue with our plans. We dropped her off and went to the party at the Plaza in the Hyatt downtown. It was really nice to have a night out with adults. We went and picked her up around 10:30. She was asleep and her fever was up again. I gave her Motrin once again and put her in bed once we got home. She woke up crying around 3:30 AM and I checked her fever and it was 104.6! Seth and I started freaking out. I stripped her down and put her in a cool bath while Seth started calling our doctor. By the way, I found out later my doc doesn't like the cool bath thing. He says it increases the risk of seizure. Praise the Lord for keeping my child safe! By the time the nurse called back her fever had gotten back down to around 102. The nurse said we should take her to the emergency room because she had been having chills and that is a sign of infection. So even though we felt it was not necessary we loaded her up and off to Wolfson's Children's Hospital we went. EK is fine being in a doctor's office and hospital but the minute they want to do anything to her she starts freaking out! The lady handed me her hospital bracelet and you would have thought we were cutting her leg off. Same thing happened in the triage room. The nurse said she had been traumatized in the past. Seth's mom says when he was little he screamed like crazy the whole way to the doctor's office and didn't stop until they were leaving, so I think she gets it from him. I of course was a perfect child and never screamed when I had doctors visits:) After 3 hours waiting we finally see the doctor. I seriously think they forgot about us. She says the strep test is negative and she will do a chest X-ray and urine sample for further tests. EK would not tee tee in the cup so I suggested to Seth we just leave and see our doctor on Monday. The nurse asked the doctor and she said that was fine. So we went home and all piled in our bed and slept for a few hours. That evening MacKenzie came over because her parents had a function at church. EK and she took it easy and played a little in her room and watched a movie. I stayed out with her Monday and took her to the doctor. She has herpangitis (sp?), which means a viral infection that creates sores on her tonsils and mouth. She barely ate anything yesterday. I asked if she wanted ice cream and she said no, so I knew my baby was sick. This morning I went to work while Seth stayed out with her and she was feeling much better. We will take her to school tomorrow.

I know I am a bad mother but I haven't taken EK to get her picture taken since she turned one. We went to Portrait Innovations on Saturday for a fall picture and a picture in her baptism outfit. She was fine until the lady started changing the background. I don't know what it was but the back drop lowering really scared her and it took forever to get a smile. Also, I am really excited that I can officially make hairbows. I tried to make them last year and they never quite looked right. When I bought her outfit for the baptism they didn't have a white satin bow at the store and the other bows they had were $14!!!! I am cheap and WILL NOT spend $14 on a hairbow. Six dollar bows make me mad but $14! What a ripoff! So I decided to make her bow and I found a video on You Tube that really helped. It turned out pretty good if I do say so myself and it costs less than a $1 to make. I love being thrifty. I made her red bow in the picture too. No more wasting my money at boutiques for bows!

Here is a picture of EK posing before school.

Seth and I both grew up in the Baptist church and have always believed in baptism after you have received and accepted salvation from Jesus Christ. Therefore when we started attending and later joined the PCA denomination (Presbyterian Church of America) we were a little hesitant about infant baptism. It is not a requirement that you have your children baptized to join a PCA church, because we believe that water baptism is not a stipulation to salvation. So we have studied God's word, sought Godly counsel (both within the PCA denomination and trusted elders of other denominations), and read books on the subject. Our final conclusion....infant baptism is a sign of God's covenant to his people, but it does not automatically grant Ella Katherine salvation. This was a long way to explain...Ella Katherine got baptized this past weekend. She was kind of fussing a little when we got up front and Seth whispered she could have cake after the service if she was good and she got real excited and kept saying cake and cookies. The baptism went well. EK didn't like the water being poured over her head but she was fine when we got back to our seat.

Here are a few pictures of Ella Katherine when she woke up Sunday morning. Obviously a bunch of rats snuck in our house and made a nest in her hair!

We had a really good weekend. It started out with a carnival at Seth's and EK's school. They had tons of jumpy things and games for the kids to play. Ella Katherine got on one of the jumpy things and really did not like it. Then we found her school friend Leah and went with her. I figured EK would be more apt to jump if she saw her friend doing it. Leah was ALL over the place. She had no fear! EK on the other hand was very careful. She finally warmed up and jumped, and slid down the slide but she was still pretty cautious. We then met up with her best friend Brooke. BRooke goes to school with her and her mom teaches right beside Seth. Brooke's brother is one of Ella Katherine's favorite people too. Wouldn't you know it....their favorite thing to do was play on the playground. As we were leaving, Seth's principal stopped us and congratulated Seth on winning TEACHER OF THE YEAR!!!! Thank goodness I had on my sunglasses because I started tearing up. I am so proud of him! We then left there and went to celebrate at restaurant in the town center close to our house. Saturday we went grocery shopping and cleaned our house. Sunday we went to church and took an afternoon nap. We needed the rest!

Seth and I have felt like we are getting in a rut on the weekdays so we decided to have a family night at the mall. We felt like Ella Katherine needed some fun too. It is hard work for a little girl to get up at 6:00 am everyday, then spend all day at "school" and not get home until around 5:30 that evening. We ate our favorite mall food....Chinese and then walked around to look in the stores. Ella Katherine especially loved the Disney store and she was being real sweet about touching things and putting stuff back when we asked her too. She watched cartoons in Gymboree while Mommy looked for clothes for baby Reid. Then she got to ride in the train and we finished the night off by playing in the mall indoor pay area which is always lots of fun. It was overall a fun family night!