One Month Old!!!

I do not know how she knew that was a UT hat, but she seems to be a Tech fan for sure!!! (sorry dad)

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!

We had a great weekend! We were lucky enough to have Brandon's brother come and meet his new little niece. It might not have been the most exciting weekend of his life, but he did say that he experience "instant love"... Uncle Peyton really is a great guy, and good with babies... Although, he decided to wait on changing a diaper, I told him that I would wait too, and the first one I ever changed was just 4 weeks ago!!!

Dee Dee also came for a quick visit on Thursday afternoon.

On Sunday we went over to my parent's house for mother's day. Brandon made a very special mother's day, and I appreciated that a lot! If you are looking for me next weekend, I will be at my niece's 9th birthday party... ;)

grandear, bopop, and their 4 grandkids

Life cycle

Right after Gates was born, my grandfather, Softhair, had a heart attack. Thankfully, he is back home and feeling okay. When this happened though, and he was in the hospital, I started thinking about our life cycle.
My great-aunt Mel Ruth passed away last night. Again, I began to think about our life cycle and the emotions that are involved with it. When a new life enters our world we are so overjoyed with wonderful feelings. When a life ends we feel so sad and full of mourning we often feel compltely left behind. When we are born, we come into the world crying. We do not want to exit that comfortable home that has kept us so safe for 10 months. We then begin to live our lives, and for most of us we are in some level scared of death. We enter the world scared and then we immediately start worrying about our exit. We should never have been scared of entering, think how much better we have it once we are born into the world. I have a feeling death is much like that. Scared for no reason at all.

My heart goes out to Martha Kate, because she has lost her mother. My heart goes out to John D because he has lost a wife of over 50 years. I pray that they can have some kind of peace in knowing that Mel Ruth is no longer suffering and that she has completed her journey on this earth. She certainly brought joy to so very many people, right from the time she exited her mother's warm and comfortable womb! She never stopped bringing happiness, and intelligence, and her savvy ways to all of us who were lucky enough to know her.

Perfect, we think so. I swear Gates smiled today. I know, it might have been a poot, but normally I hear the poots and I did not hear anything when she was smiling at me! She seems like she is getting so much bigger now. Filling out, if you will.

It is Wednesday, hump day. You might not think I would care what day it is. The truth is Wednesday is now more important than ever, 2 more days until Brandon will be able to help me solid for the weekend!!!! Yippie for hump day!

Sweet Scrabble and Gates........
Scrabble wanted to play steamroller with Gates....

Gates had a lot of excitement this weekend. On Friday night we went to Chili's. Gates slept the whole time, and we even got dessert!

Saturday we went and had lunch in Frisco at the Hake's house!

Here is a picture of Gates and Keelan.

Then we went over to Garland and saw GG MawMaw and The Rapps! Gates got to meet her little cousin Clayton.

Yesterday, I took Gates to my niece, Raedyn's, first communion. Gates got to meet her 3 cousins on that side. Thank God my mom was there to help me, I do not think I am ready for solo outings yet.

Raedyn, getting her first communion.
Rhylie and Charlie checking out their new cous! Charlie kept saying, "baby, baby"

The last couple of days and nights have been good. I have been sleeping in spurts when Gates sleeps in spurts! She had longer spurts last night which was GREAT! She really is such a pleasure and her demeanor is so good. Tomorrow, we think we are going to go out to eat! It will be her first outing to eat. Her first outing was to James Avery, where she got to meet some very special new friends! I got her charm bracelet engraved and her very first Christmas ornament! I used to work at James Avery, they are special friends for that reason, not because I shop there soooo much. :)


Gates after her bath!

She smells so clean and fresh (unlike Duncan) that he had to get a sniff.

Gates prebath!