TENDER MERCIES

As I am sure everyone knows my younger sister Jessica gave birth to a beautiful baby girl on February 20th, 2008. She weighed 7 lbs 2 oz and was 20 inches long. I have not done a post on her yet becuase I dont have a camera and so I didn't have any pictures of her but my mom emailed me some so now I can finally do it. It was a long day of waiting for all of us especially Jessica and Jay. They arrived at the hospital around five and the nurses almost sent Jess home around seven am because even though she was having major contractions she wasn't dialated at all and you have to dialate for them to consider you in labor I guess. Thank goodness her doctor was there and making the rounds around seven and came in and told her if he could break her water she could stay and have this baby today. So after a long day of just waiting and never dialating past a 2 the doctor gave her a choice of having a C-section and Jessica agreeed. She was tired and ready to be done with waiting.

Jessica was born with a cleft pallit cleft lip which always made her nervous to have kids not wanting to pass that "defect" on to them. I remember when Ciaran was born she would just stare at his lips and nose at how perfect they were and I just new she longed for that in her own kids oneday. Well she did deliver a perfect little baby girl with the most perfect mouth and nose that you could ask for. Infact in most of the pictures that I have at the office people ask if she has lip gloss on. Her little perfect lips just glitter and shine like saying look at me. This was such a tender mercy for all of us to see Jessica get this perfect gift from our Heavenly Father after all she has been through. She has had so many surgeries we have all lost count but this last surgery she had (C-section) she received the best gift ever and and I think it was Heavenly Fathers way of saying good job sticking through everything you have been through and here is my reward to you. Congradulations Jessica and Jay you have a beautiful perfect baby girl and she is certainly a gift from heaven.

FREE ZOO DAY

Today was free zoo day at our local Hogle Zoo. The zoo does this four times a year during the winter the last wednesday of every month from November to February. I try to take my kids at least one day every year to see if they like it enough to buy a season pass. Well in the past years they have been more interested in the sticks and garbage on the ground then the animals but this year it was great. They loved it so much. Every animal we came to Ciaran's first concern is if they bite. That is his latest thing on everything is if it bites. I dont know why he has never been bit by anything that I know of but it is obviously a concern of his. But we had a great day. We met Melissa, Becky, Cady, Conner and Alexa there so the it was fun to get the cousins together. I also met Charees and her boys Landon and Logan and Quinn and Tate and Clair. So between everyone there that we knew we had a great time. We got to see the White Aligator which was way cool. I thought that they moved the aligator to a different zoo in September so I was kindof bumbed that we never got to see it but it is still there. I would recommend everyone to go see it. So I think I will get a season pass this year for our kids so if anyone ever wants to go to the zoo let me know and we could tag along.