5th anniversary=)

hi sweet baby=)

happy anniversary to my sweet husband. today daddy and i have been married for 5 years! it's been quite eventful, wouldn't you say? get married, move to virginia, donnie starts grad school, katie starts grad school, have a sweet precious girl, fight with her for her life, katie finishes grad school, move to south carolina...it has been busy, huh? it has also been "rich" and full of love and grace from our sweet God who wants all the best for us. His handprint is all over our little story. i can't wait to see what He has for our future, sweet little one. lately you've been looking at the wedding picture on our wall and telling us that that's when mommy and daddy got married. one of the anniversary traditions i have been unsuccessful at implementing the last few years (but have great plans to "start" this year) is watching our rehearsal dinner and wedding video on our annivesary. i think you're gonna love it. you like to tell us who's in every picture in our house and what they're doing in it, and you LOVE movies, so i think this will be the best of both worlds for you=)

and speaking of marriage, i read the book "love and war" by john and stasi eldredge a few weeks ago. i've been trying so hard to figure out how i want to describe what it has done for my life and our marriage but i still have no answer.

it has been nothing short of miraculous.

i realize that's a pretty dramatic way of describing it, and i generally shy away from being unnecessarily dramatic, but in this case i think it's sort of necessary, and completely appropriate. it really has transformed the way i see your daddy, and myself, and basically the point of our life here together. it has changed my perspective on marriage in general, and i am desperately praying that i'll never be the same after reading it. and to try and preserve some sense of privacy (not an easy thing for me...i tend to be an utterly open book) i will wrap that up here. we can talk about it more later, sweet catherine.


but i can't help but put a plug in...if you've never read this book, are married, or might ever get married, read it!!! i really do think it should be a mandatory part of pre-marital counseling. you think anybody will listen to me??? ;)

catherine my love: read the book=)

here are some fun wedding pictures for your visual enjoyment...you were just a dream then but we somehow managed to still have an absolute blast. daddy and i are still surprised at how much fun we had that day, and how our parents helped us to have the most perfect wedding we could imagine. thanks again grandaddy, gigi, grandypa, and susie=)

love you babe. both my babes=)

mommy

i like feet. what can i say?

the strapping davis men.


daddy loves his little sister so much=) i think that made me think he was extra cool when we were just friends. (ooh! aunt nikki came to visit us this week! we had so much fun having girl time wednesday-taking walks, playing on the playground, eating ice cream and watching friends while you were taking a nap...we wish we got to see more of aunt nikki)



i'm not sure why i feel compelled to share this picture. mostly because we miss these boys. they are silly and were most cooperative when our photographer asked them to "hold hands and skip toward me!" ???????

when i'm at weddings, i always turn and look at the groom when the bride walks in. so i thought it was only appropriate to share this picture=)

wowsa. i love it.

daddy wanted us to dance back down the aisle after the ceremony. so we did, and here we are.

best wedding music ever. i have great taste in extremely talented musicians and singers=)

this is the picture on our wall that you always talk about=)

gorgeous. even better than i expected.

my two best friends. classy, as usual=)

nevermind the sweat on my forehead. it means i was a dancing machine, which is all i really asked of my reception=)

65 years...

hi love=)

a few weeks ago, we drove to forsyth, georgia for grandaddy's parents' 65th wedding anniversary party. you call these people papa and grandmama. some of the most precious people i have ever known. we are so lucky to call them our grandparents, aren't we?

65 years is a big deal. there's no denying that. so i was definitely excited to go celebrate with them. but something about being there with our whole family celebrating the ones who came together to make it (us) all happen was so beautiful. they have four sons and all of them are married with 2 or 3 kids each and most of those kids have babies of their own...it was a big crowd. i love those people so much. it is good for my soul to be with them. i have always thought so much of these two great grandparents of yours, but it was almost like i saw them in a new light that night. i'm sure part of it is because i got to hear papa tell their love story. he's a preacher, and when he's not learning about Jesus and preparing to teach his churches about Him, he's telling jokes or being silly and he's basically just the sweetest rascal i've ever met. (one of my favorite memories of him is when i was on the back porch of their old house with my brothers and the boys were talking about how much they loved the ice cream we were eating. we were about to leave to drive 2 1/2 hours to go home, and papa recommended we just put some ice cream in our pockets to have later...i realize this might possibly not be the funniest joke you've ever heard, but that's when i realized he was flipping hilarious. and it has stuck with me ever since...) so to see him in this shamelessly romantic light telling the love of his life how precious she is to him...it was one of the most beautiful things i've ever seen. and there's no denying how much grandmama adores him back. i can't think of a single thing she wouldn't do for him. she really does adore him. i can't think of a better word.

papa has cancer. we found that out last summer. it makes us so sad that he is sick, but he's making the best of every day and taking all of the ups and downs in stride. and loving his sweet lady and appreciating anew every way she's taking care of him.

i don't know what life has in store, but i hope you're able to remember grandmama and papa when you get older. here are some pictures and a sweet video from their anniversary party.

to grandmama and papa...

mommy

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their silly family. minus just a few...

papa and grandmama with their 3 boys.

weren't they foxy??

alphabet song and surgery update

hi love=)

you are an alphabet-song-singing-machine! look at you go=) i'm not sure what you have against the letters L and M, but i like it.

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also, did you hear how you say "ju" for the letter "u"? you're latina like that. the other day we were laying down for a nap and you were stalling big time. you said "mama lay down right here a little bit" patting the bed next to you, so of course i did. and then you gazed into my eyes with this sweet goofy grin for a second and then started saying "i like ju hair" and patted my hair, and "i like ju eyes" and touched my eyes, and "i like ju chin" and cheeks, and ears, and nose, etc, etc. all the while smiling at me and knowing that you won. i didn't even care...i was soaking up the compliments from my favorite critic=)

so we went to musc for your ct scan and to talk to the surgeon again. it starts with bad news but ends with good news. you have more in your chest than before (stomach, spleen, some colon) but it's basically encapsulated in some sort of membrane that they can't really explain. so yes, it's in your chest, but it's not free flowing willy nilly up there bothering your lungs too much, so it's not so bad. and it means they're still not rushed to do surgery. they couldn't see the hiatus area of your diaphragm (where the diaphragm comes up to the esophagus) so they couldn't tell if it was just a monstrous diaphragmatic defect or if you have any diaphragm on the edge by your esophagus or not (which would make it a hiatal hernia too). sorry if that makes no sense-i'll draw you a picture one day. but basically, even after the massive amount of radiation involved in a ct scan, we are doing an upper gi in april to see for sure if there is any diaphragm next to your esophagus. i do completely trust this surgeon. i'm glad he wants to be so thorough so he'll know exactly what to expect when he gets in there. he still thinks he'll go in through your chest between two ribs when he does your surgery (which, by the way, he plans on doing early summer...may or june). he was REALLY happy that you had gained such good weight (over 2 pounds since we saw him in december) and that you generally had been in such good health against some major odds. we've all had some sort of cold since early january-i had the flu last week but we put you on tamiflu as soon as i tested positive, then i got a sinus infection a few days later but you were still doing pretty well-just a runny nose and coughing...so with a couple rounds of antibiotics and some tamiflu, you've held your own. and on the ct scan your lungs looked great even though there were some things in their way, so that was more good news.

here was a fun twist in our trip to charleston...tuesday night we were in a hotel and we realized around midnight that you had a fever. of course i didn't bring a thermometer or any anti-pyretic medicine so there i go galavanting around downtown charleston in the middle of the night looking for a 24 hour drug store. found one, got back to you, and your temperature is 102.3. we gave you some advil and throughout the day it would come down a little and go back up, to the point that when we left to come home it was 104.6!! you slept on the way home and the medicine kicked in and you played with daddy and were a happy sweet girl before we went to bed wednesday night. and when i woke up thursday morning to go to work guess what your fever was.

105.8.

yes. 105.8.

i honestly have never even seen a fever that high, and i'm a pediatric nurse practitioner. anyhoo-you really were acting totally fine when your fever would come down, so we weren't too terribly worried. we started tossing in some tylenol between your advil doses, brought you to see dr gully that morning just in case, and we all agreed that it was some sort of virus that gives you outrageously high fevers but runs its course and leaves in a few days. so here we are on day 3. hope it leaves soon.

so there you have it. sweet little angel. we are praying for no complications between now and june and for sick season to get the heck out of here!

in other news, it's been 70 degrees for the past few days!!!! mommy has been deliriously happy. i feel like i'm manic or something. you and daddy rode your scooter around outside yesterday afternoon and we've kept our porch door open and it is so good for mommy's soul=) it's also good for my soul when you grin at me and rub my back and give me kisses.

i love you sweet baby-

mommy

itsy bitsy spider

hey sweet babe=)


here's a video of you singing the itsy bitsy spider. except you say "ipsy-ider" and we can't get enough. i love how you can't quite get past the "down came the rain" line. you just keep singing that one over and over. my other favorite is how you are trying so hard to keep holding froggy while you do your hand motions=)

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ps-we're going to charleston today for your ct scan and appointment with the surgeon tomorrow. i want to have something else profound to say, but i'm not really sure how i feel or what to think...so i'll keep you posted.

yogurt and the fridge

hi love=)

you like yogurt. especially when dora is on the box. and you are also a fan of exploring our refrigerator. here you will see how these two joys of yours come together to make one happy catherine.

cutie pie. i love you=)

mommy