Happy 2008!

We're 10 minutes away from the new year, and I'm blogging...whatever. Just wanted to wish everyone a happy new year and share this slideshow of our 2007 with you. I hope your family has been as blessed as mine has this year.

Happy New Year!

Christmas in Kentucky

Hope everyone had a very merry Christmas! We spent our Christmas in Paducah with my Paw Paw's family. We usually do dinner and presents at my Aunt Jane and Uncle Jake's house, but they weren't in town this Christmas. So that left Grandma Hester's (my great-grandmother) trailer. Twenty-four of us eating Christmas dinner in her little trailer was certainly interesting! We had a good time, and we honestly weren't as crowded as we were expecting to be. And the seven kids in attendance didn't even break anything (at least not as far as I know...Grandma might find something broken shoved under a bed somewhere, haha).

I haven't uploaded my pictures from Kentucky yet, so for now I'll just post a picture of Uncle Jake, who was unable to attend this year. This is from Thankgiving last year. Some of Jake's favorite things to do are gripe about the "Hester gene" and how Hesters "always have to be right" (he married into the family), shop at "the secret store" and buy entire outfits for less than $1.00, and pretend he's mean. In fact, I believe he told Avery, "You don't want to talk to me--I'm mean" right before I took this picture. As you can see, Avery remained determined, and Jake ended up reading her a book. Oh, and I'm pretty sure he got those pants for 25 cents.

Look over there ------->

And turn up your volume. I've finally discovered how to add music to my blog. Here is one of my current favorites; you may have noticed part of the lyrics as my quote. I've wanted to make the entire song one of my quotes, but I thought that might be going a little overboard. So here are the lyrics. Merry Christmas!



- Chris Rice Lyrics

A Home for the Holidays

It's tomorrow night! Everyone be sure to watch or set your DVR; it'll be on CBS at 7pm (for you central time zone people). It really is a great show. Mom is especially excited about Shane Salter (see below). He spoke at a foster care convention she attended in North Carolina years ago and she has raved about him ever since (for you Memphis people, don't be shocked if she gets him at HeartLight one of these days). Here's the press release from the Dave Thomas Foundation.

"THE 9TH ANNUAL A HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS," AN ANNUAL ENTERTAINMENT SPECIAL CELEBRATING THE JOYS OF ADOPTION, TO BE BROADCAST FRIDAY, DEC. 21
Sheryl Crow, James Blunt, Fergie, Karmina, Carole King and Reba McEntire Perform on this Moving Holiday Special
David Krumholtz, George Lopez, Rene Russo and Other Celebrities Present Inspirational Stories About Adoption

THE 9TH ANNUAL A HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS, a new entertainment special to be broadcast Friday, Dec. 21 (8:00-9:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network, will include moving performances by Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter Sheryl Crow, Popular vocalist James Blunt, Pop and R&B star Fergie, sister pop singers Karmina, Grammy Award-winning singer and songwriting legend Carole King and Grammy and ACM Award-winning country superstar Reba McEntire. David Krumholtz ("Numb3rs"), comedian George Lopez and Rene Russo ("Yours, Mine and Ours") are among the celebrities presenting inspirational stories about adoption.

Following the success of the past eight annual shows, this year's special continues to tell touching stories about foster care adoption to raise awareness of this important social issue. The inspirational stories of these American families are enhanced by performances from some of today's most popular performers.

The musical performances frame several pre-taped story segments which are presented by celebrities who either have their own adoption experiences or are involved with children's issues. The stories highlight many exceptional American children and families involved in this rewarding process.

• The Thayer Family (Medford, Ore.) Susan Thayer spent the first 11 years of her life in the grip of her abusive biological parents. "If not for the kindness of strangers, I never would have known how magnificent life can be," says Susan. At age 11, she found a loving home in the arms of her adoptive parents, Rex and Sandy Fuqua. Today, Susan and her husband Don are the proud parents of two biological sons and two adopted children.
• The Smith Family (San Diego) "The family I always dreamed of is the family I have now," says 12-year-old Jordan Smith. Growing up in foster care, Jordan lived in many different homes. But the home he shared with his adoptive parents, Patrick and Patty Smith, was the first home he could call his own. Jordan had lived there one year to the day when the house tragically burned to the ground recently in the Southern California wildfires. Jordan has brought strength to his new family during this difficult time, saying, "It was hard losing the house, but home is where the heart is, and as long as I have my mom and dad, I have everything I need."
• The Salter Family (Washington, D.C.) Placed in foster care at age 4, Shane Salter aged out of the system without ever being adopted. Against all odds, he graduated college, became a successful businessman and reached out as a married father of three to adopt four sons. Today, six years after his story first aired on "A Home for the Holidays," Shane's older children are now successful young adults and Shane's two youngest sons have overcome the challenges they faced early in life.
• Children Waiting (Los Angeles) There are over one half million children currently in foster care in the United States. This story gives voice to these children by creating an intimate portrait of foster children who need permanent loving homes.

The special is presented in association with the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption and the Children's Action Network. Wendy's restaurant founder Dave Thomas, who was adopted, established the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption in 1992. It is dedicated to increasing the awareness of the more than 100,000 children in the United States foster care system who have been freed for adoption. Wendy's Restaurants is a program sponsor.

The Children's Action Network was founded in 1990 by leaders in the entertainment industry to harness the power of the entertainment media on behalf of children. The special is a part of CAN's National Adoption Campaign to raise awareness of the joys of adopting and to find homes for the children who are waiting.

Friday, December 21, 2007...8:00 - 9:00 pm. EST / PST...7:00 - 8:00 p.m. CST / MST

three kids

Just thought I'd share some recent pics of Jared & Shelby's little ones. These are pretty much all the pictures I've gotten of them over the last month...so you know they've kept me busy when I've been there! There are definitely three of them.

ready for bed

To get Hunter to pose for the previous picture, I promised him he could take a picture of the other two. This is what he got. Poor Chase.

Normally he looks like this. :-) He's a sweet boy.

How cute are those dimples? We're not sure where they came from; Tekia's the only other family member with dimples!

Christmas at the Capitol

A few weeks ago, Jill was nice enough to take Nick, Rachel, and I on a tour of her workplace, the Capitol building in Little Rock. The Capitol was having sort of a Christmas open house that night, so we got to see all the decorations. I know there are a lot of pictures, but there were just so many things to photograph! (Sorry the spacing's messed up; I've tried to fix it and I keep ending up deleting pictures.)

I'm pretty sure this is the burning bush.
Nick's favorite member of the Diamond State Chorus

me, Jill, & Rachel

We had to take a cheesy picture on the bridge because everyone else was doing it.

Nick & Rach

a senior picture pose under the burning bush

Sometimes I take pictures while driving.

No big deal. I was driving from Searcy to Little Rock a few weeks ago and just thought the sky looked cool.

OVER

OVER. I can now and forever use that word to describe my nursing school experience, and I'm so happy! I finally graduated! Most of you know that my experience in nursing school was not easy or fun--at times it was downright miserable. Words just cannot describe the relief I felt after walking across the stage yesterday! I would like to say that some of my teachers are wonderful and of course my friends are amazing; none of us could've made it through even one semester without each other. I will miss those teachers and friends dearly.

I keep feeling like I didn't get everything done and still have to turn in something. I really can't believe I made it and came out with a BSN degree. During the ceremony, my friend Kari looked at me and said, "I really thought I would have dropped out or gotten kicked out before now!" My thoughts exactly. This semester has been especially tough as our class dropped from 22 to 14 in just three months. This weekend has been bittersweet. The 14 of us who remained are just so thrilled to be done and yet so sad that some of our classmates weren't there to walk with us yesterday. We missed them.

In other grown-up news, on Friday I accepted a job in the neonatal intensive care unit at Methodist LeBonheur Germantown Hospital. I start January 7th and will be working three 12-hour days per week. I'm going to miss my big, fat screaming babies in well-baby but I've always loved the NICU in clinicals. So I think this will be good. I'm grateful to have a break for a few weeks...some of my friends are starting tomorrow. Geez!

Kari and I...we are certain that we were the happiest people there.

Lea, we got your text before we even saw our families. That seems about right. :-) We love you!

My family were the loud ones in the back. ;-) the lovely photographer and I

More pics from this weekend to come!

So excited!

I bet you think I'm talking about graduation, which is happening in just FOUR days! While I am excited about that, this post is about another Searcy event.

As you may remember from last year, I am just a little obsessed with The Living Nativity, an event put on by a local church each year during the Christmas season. The drive-through nativity started last weekend and will also be open this weekend (when my family & I will be going). I've been watching them build the city of Bethlehem for the past several weeks and I can't wait to see it!

My family has come up to see it for the past two years, and I'd strongly recommend it to anyone who's willing to make the drive to Searcy. It'd be well worth it! And don't worry...if you come for the nativity, I won't be mad if you skip out on my graduation. ;-) It really is amazing. Really, really. It's like VBS on steroids. This church does a great job ministering to the community through this event - last year they had around 11,000 people drive through! If you don't come, you'll have to read my post from last year for a detailed account of the nativity experience, and check out the web site for a lot more pictures.

something funny

I still have more catching up to do on my blogging, but I had to share this really quick. Today I took a test on legal & ethical issues in nursing...not fun. However, there was a funny test answer. The answers choices (you could only choose one answer, by the way) went something like this...

a. _______
b. _______
c. a & b only
d. b only

Anyone else notice something a little off about those choices? If we want to choose "b only", why can't we just choose b?? Oh well. Two more weeks. :-)


P.S. Our class is now down to 14 (from 22 at the start of the semester). I'm hanging on for dear life!

catching up...

I've got lots of blogging to do! I've been meaning to post pictures from Harding's Homecoming a few weeks ago. More of our family was together for Homecoming than we were for Thanksgiving, haha. The bigger kids were running around all over the place, and I wasn't in the mood to chase them...thus, I only have pics of the little ones.

A rabbit at the petting zoo scratched her on the cheek, but she didn't care because she was getting to hold a rabbit.

Pretty typical Ave...hovering over Chase.

Mom and Jared are so excited to be at Homecoming!

sisters/cousins

the best ones ;-)

happy Chase
Again...Avery hovering.

He's nice sometimes.

Happy Thanksgiving!

That's all. Just happy Thanksgiving. I'm at home enjoying time with my family and hope everyone I love is getting to do the same!

Oh, and I heard on the radio today that the average Thanksgiving meal has 7,000 calories. I made a pumpkin pie tonight, and Mom made a chocolate chess pie. And Tekia and Rumi made chocolate chip cookies. We're obviously not concerned, and you shouldn't be either. This is how we show we're thankful for food & family, among other things.

P.S. Speaking of Thanksgiving, keep your eye out for our little friends in the St. Jude Thanks & Giving campaign ads. Mom and I saw Maddie (not sure if I've mentioned Maddie before, but we go to church with her and her family) and Taylor (& Marlo Thomas) all over Ann Taylor the other night! I also found them online here. And I've seen Maddie in multiple ads on facebook and other sites. :-)

"Put that camera down and help me!"

says the neighbors' cat...

And here are some other cute photos of Avery (& Hunter) at our house a few weekends ago. I love this one of her in Jamal's Halloween costume. Who wouldn't want to kiss this?

nursing, nursing, and more nursing

These past couple of weeks have been nothing but nursing school, and I finally feel like there's an end in sight! Last Tuesday was our critical care simulation & clinical final. As some of you may know, if you don't pass those with a C, you fail the whole course, no matter how great the rest of your grades in clinical or theory have been. And that has happened to me before. Our class of 23 students has dropped down to 16 since the beginning of this semester, so, needless to say, I was very nervous that I would be next. I cried tears of relief on Wednesday when my teacher told me that she couldn't give me my grade over the phone, but she could tell me that I had reason to celebrate. :-) My closest friends and I all passed simulation, but one of our classmates did not. :-( We should be used to this by now, but it just makes us so sad every time it happens.

The day before simulation, my friends Katelyn, Kari, and I went to the park in an attempt to make studying fun...but we took a camera just in case we got bored. We missed you, Lea.

This weekend Mom was here with me and she helped me with my big, fat nursing portfolio that was due today. I don't think I've ever had to so much work to get done in one weekend! I wrote a 7-page paper, a 23-page paper (that one I just did last night and today), a few other random 1-pagers, and I put together my portfolio with samples of my work from the last two and a half years. It was crazy. Thank goodness Mom was here to help me stuff pages in page protectors and make my portfolio "pretty" with lots of cute nursing stickers and cardstock. Mom and I rarely get to spend time together without kids around, so we had a good time and enjoyed getting to eat somewhere other than McDonald's. Thank you so much, Mom!

And here is the finished product! I neglected to get a picture of the title page, which is Mom's favorite part (sorry, Mom). I didn't have time to take pictures at all really; I just snapped these with my phone as I was on my way to turn it in!

And here is the aftermath. My poor room. The first thing I did after turning all my work in (well, after eating) was clean it up! All those papers and notebooks were making me sick to my stomach!

Now I'm off to catch a few hours of sleep before I have to wake up at 4:30am for clinical! Ohhh, this will be over soon.