15 months plus some!!

Better late than never right?!?!  So we are back in our house and have been for a few months now....I have been working on a post regarding that, but never finished.  The gist of it is pretty much that every time that I walk into my living room, smell smoke, hear a siren, hug my sweet girl...I am reminded of our "Crazy Christmas Eve 2010" and how blessed we are!!!  We are still dealing with insurance MESS but other than that we are back home and back to "normal" life!!!  We love our new and improved house (with smoke detectors in EVERY room and the attic) and continue to appreciate the goodness that came from that crazy night!!  Thank you all for all of your thoughts and prayers!!  I still get chills when I even think about what "could" have happened...and it amazes me that the sound of a siren can take me straight back to that night and me standing in the middle of East Vineland Rd longing to hear those sirens and knowing they were coming to MY house as I stood there and watched smoke and flames come from it!!!  Anyways, moving on!!!  Luckily I dont think our sweet girl will ever remember that night, but I feel certain she will know of her first Christmas.....so she is now 16 months old and into EVERYTHING!!!  Yesterday she was stirring the toilet with my hairbrush....nice, huh?!?  She has started climbing on anything she can.  And she is OH SO SASSY!!!  She has a new love...his name is "Mitty Mouse" and we talk about him about a thousand times a day!!!  All in all, she is the light of our lives!!!   Here are some of her 15 month pics that I did about a month ago!!  Enjoy!! And thank you all again for all of your thoughts and prayers!!

Chelsey Ray: 12 Months

I cannot believe my sweet baby girl is a year old!!!  What a crazy, emotional, AMAZING year it has been!!  In your first year of life we have remodeled a kitchen, relocated to Augusta, survived a house fire, and moved in with LeLe and Papa, hence the change in our normal monthly chair pictures!  But this is part of your life so we will go with it!! :)

At your one year check up you weighed 19lbs 8oz, they said you are petite!!  Def dont get that from your mommy!!  Your are in the 20%ile for weight and 50%ile for head circumference and 22%ile with height.  You barely wear a size 2 shoe....your feet are TINY.  You are crawling like a champ, just not sure about walking yet, you can pull up on everything and can walk pushing something but just wont let go, I personally think it is your small feet!! :)  You have the sweetest personality and are very strong willed and fiesty!!  You can say mama, dada, papa, brock (bok), baby, bye bye, papa, you can sign dog, more, milk, eat, cracker.....you are SO smart!!  You have truly blessed our lives this year and we are so thankful for you sweet girl!!  Happy Birthday!!!

SNOW day!!!

So we woke up to a blanket of white snow...and ice....Chelsey had fun checkin it out!!!!

 Then she helped Papa B as he made his juices for the day....

Our Second home....thank you Mom and Dad!!!

Crazy Belle (Chesapeake Bay Retriever) got in the pond....and had fun!!!

Chelsey and Papa went for a short 4-wheeler ride.... 

 My sweet family!!!

Chelsey and her Papa B!

Love this pic....

I am so in love with this sweet girl!!!

So, the snow day allowed me to somewhat catch up on my blogging!! :)
Happy Snow day everyone!!!

Christmas to Remember addendum....

So many people  have asked if we knew what caused the fire.....aside from this being above our fireplace....

The Battalion chief that night said it was a "faulty fireplace"....our house was built in 1951, and apparently there is not a liner in the fireplace....so he said that overtime the mortar began to crumble which left the perfect hole for the perfect flame to get into which made the "perfect" situation for the fire to get into our attic....which just happened to be Christmas Eve 2010!!  So needless to say, we will not be burning a fire in our house ANY time in the near future, but as long as your fire place has been inspected (which ours was 2 years ago) and it is built correctly.....it should be safe!!!  Don't let our story scare you!  Just be safe!!! :)

Christmas to Remember....continued.....

......so as I have Chelsey in my arms and I am calling 911 and running out of the house, the only thoughts that run through my mind was, its Christmas Eve, and not us....this is a joke, this isnt happening to us and on Christmas Eve?!?!?  Well when I get outside and run to the road and look back at our house....yes, it is definitely happening to us....there was smoke coming from EVERY opening in the attic....we were just in that house, and going about our business like nothing was wrong and there were FLAMES in our attic!  As I hold Chelsey tightly I had a rush of very different emotions, thankfulness....we are out and safe!!  Confusion....how did this happen?!?!?  Sadness.....our house is ON FIRE!!!  So, the very calm 911 dispatcher didnt have to ask what my emergency was....I told him first thing, then of course he asked if everyone was out of the house....yes, we are all out and safe....wait a minute....my CRAZY husband just ran back into the house.....as he tells me ma'am everyone needs to get out of the house.....I begin yelling at Charlie.....he comes out....ok sir everyone is out.....wait a minute....my CRAZY husband just ran back into the house again.....the 911 guy very calmly again tells me ma'am everyone needs to get out of the house.....I KNOW THEY DO BUT HE WONT LISTEN TO ME!!!  I begin yelling at Charlie.....he comes out....this happened one more time....I could have killed him!!  What did he go back in for?!?  He got our keys to move the cars away from the house, yes good thinking but didnt have to be done!!  He got our laptops...he said he know our pictures were on there, and his work stuff.....again NOT necessary!  Then he locked his gun safe bc it is fire proof if it is locked!!!  Anyways, bottom line we got out!!!  FINALLY!!!  Ok moving on....so I am on the phone with 911, Chelsey in my arms, laughing, Im sure she is thinking this is cool, outside in the middle of the night....Im balling, no shoes on.....I cant call my mama or anyone bc the 911 guy wont let me get off the phone until they show up.....well they show up at the WRONG house, so I go running down the road yelling at them and yelling at the 911 guy that they are at the wrong house.....surely they could see the smoke....now flames coming from our house.....ok they were here!!!!  The sweet neighbor came and got Chelsey and I went over there for a bit and tried texting Charlie and he never responded so I went over there, Chelsey was content playing with Miss Judy's baby dolls.....by this time there were 6 fire trucks, the Battalion Chiefs truck, and 2 rescue trucks....

.....I freaked out....does it take that many people to put out a house fire....well come to find out our house is on the border....so EVERYONE came!!  Which we are grateful!!  Just overwhelming at first....there were14 firefighters working on our house!!!  Now let me just give a shout out to the Richmond county Fire Dept

.....they obviously know what they are doing...before they put a drop of water in our living room they moved everything under our Christmas tree and put it in another room!  They literally SAVED Christmas!  Thank you!!  I know that those are just things, and we can replace those....but right there in that moment when we got to walk back into our house for the first time post fire and I saw those presents I burst into tears....its Christmas Eve, nowhere would be open to buy new ones for Chelsey.....but it was all ok!  Thank you again RCFD!!!

So, needless to say, we caused a major commotion in Vineland on Christmas Eve....I walked around and apologized to the neighbors who were all very understanding......So they secured the house and let us in to assess the damage and grab what we could for the night....we were heading to my parents house.  This is what we saw.... 

Thank the Good Lord for sweet friends to come and check on you and give you a hug when you need a it!!!  Thank you Kileigh!!!

So as we packed up and drove away from our house it was quite emotional....here we had big plans to wake up for our first Christmas as a family of 3, and although our plans had changed we are just so thankful we were still able to celebrate Christmas!!  And Chelsey got even more spoiled at Papa and LeLe's house!!!  

She was wide awake and ready to go at 1am...poor thing had a big first Christmas Eve!!

So all in all, the Christmas 2010 was by far the best Christmas ever....you may think I am crazy to say that, but We had our sweet baby girl to celebrate with and we are just thankful to be alive and still have a house that we can eventually go back to!!!  Thank you Jesus for humbling us and reminding us the real reason for the season and for your sweet angels that protected my sweet family!!!

Merry Christmas to all!!!

Stay tuned for construction updates and for Chelsey's Birthday fun!!!

A Christmas to remember!

Ok, So I have always been the journaling type....I think that is why I appreciate blogs!  But I figured I would sit down and blog about that memorable Christmas Eve!!  So here goes.....

We had a wonderful day!!!  We woke up, fiddled around the house and went to my parents for Christmas and lunch at 1pm....we went to Christmas Eve service at Warren, and Chelsey put on a show during the service.  But as we sat there with our sweet daughter, all I could think about was how blessed we are...and how content I was with my life right now, funny, huh?!  So from church we went home to start our new family traditions....this is the last family picture taken in our house.....

...Chelsey opened her Christmas PJ's, she got her bath, put on her new Christmas PJ's and we took some fun pictures in front of the tree and then we sat down to read the Christmas story from the Bible and The book The Night Before Christmas.

We set out cookies for Santa and Chelsey had to try them out!!!  Notice the beautiful fire we had going....we did not think anything of it bc that was probably the 15-20th fire we have had this season....

Santa came.....this was the last picture of the night....before the chaos.

So here is where things get interesting....Charlie and I got a TV on black Friday and that was our present for each other...so we werent "supposed" to get presents for each other....however, I got a few things I knew Charlie needed/wanted and had them wrapped and under the tree.  Charlie found them, so he went out that morning and picked up 2 presents for me.  After we had Chelsey down for the night, Charlie said Santa wont come to a dirty house.....so we folded laundry, and picked things up, etc....then he asked me if I wanted to exchange our presents that night (he is not good at surprises) and I told him NO, we will do it Christmas morning....well with a little persuasion he got to me and we were going to open ONE and that was it.....so in hind sight we were just buying time and letting the fire get bigger....so we opened our one present and guess what....you guessed it he wanted to open the other one.....same story, I said no but he won....so we opened our second present....and that was done, all in all with the talking, begging, opening, etc it prob took 30 minutes.  We shut the tv off and I went to shut the lamp off by the wall/fireplace and Charlie made sure the fire (in the fireplace) was out before bed and once the tv was off we heard something in the wall.....oh let my tell you that I already had on my new pj's from Charlie...which bless his heart were one size too small but I decided to try them on anyways.....and I still had them on.......ok back to the real story.....the sound to me initally sounded like a mouse crawling UP the inside of that wall, and I said is that a mouse....and Charlie said no, there is no way that is a mouse, and he walked over to the wall that was to the left of the fireplace and placed his hand on the wall......he said it was not hot but I had to make sure for myself....and I walked over there and as I touched the cool wall I jokingly said our house isnt on fire is it?  As I was saying and doing this Charlie went to the hall and pulled the attic latter down, just cracked the door, and smoke came barreling out....at that time he thought the light string was attached to the door, but we now know that wasnt possible and it was really flames along with smoke in our attic...so my husband calmly says "call 911, our house is on fire" I still with my hand on the wall said nuh uh.....and look at the wall and realize on the other side of that wall our house really was on fire....and it really was NOT a mouse but it was flames!!!  I not so calmly yell at him to get Chelsey as I grab a coat (bc remember I have on my too small but oh so thoughtful Christmas Pj's that I had not changed out of yet-of course) and the phone, meet Charlie in the hall and grab Chelsey and dial 911 on the way out......to be continued.....

Wow! Way behind!! Month 7-11!!!

Wow, So I am WAY behind with the blog!!!  Im so sorry!  We have had some crazy and fun few months!!!  I will try to get Christmas pics up before Easter!  Ha!!!  We fall more and more in love with the sweet sassy girl every day!  She is such a blessing to our life!!!  And growing SO fast!!!!  So she is standing on her own, not walking yet....but she sure is crawling fast!!!  She can say Mama, Dada, Papa, Brock, Uh-oh, baby.....and Im sure some more Im not thinking of.  She has 2 teeth on the bottom now.....and LOVES to eat!! :)

Merry Christmas to all!!!