It is Christmas time at our House

Loral loves singing and has learned many of the hand motions that go to certain songs. We were singing "If your happy and you know it" while taking a few pictures by our tree.

Loral was a pink monster for Halloween and was the most adorable monster ever. She enjoyed seeing her friends dressed up as well. We didn't really trick-or-treat, we did go to a thing at church and then visited the grandparents. That was enough for her.

Checking out her Halloween goodies.

It is so hard to believe that it is Christmas again. It seems like we were just celebrating. Although when I look at Loral and see all that she is doing these days I realize how much has changed since last Christmas. We have had a disaster at our house and hope that it will be fixed soon. Our external hard drive that we purchased to keep all our pictures and videos on is not working. So for now we have lost all the pictures we have taken over the past several years and all the video we have of Loral from last Christmas to now. It has been hard to deal with, I understand now what fire victims feel like when they loose all their pictures and videos. It is awful!

On another note Loral is growing and changing constantly. She repeats just about anything that is said to her. We started working on potty or pobby training as Loral calls it. She is very excited about all the christmas lights and enjoys rearranging all the presents under the tree. Christmas morning is going to be so much fun at our house this year. We have had an Elf around our house and Loral looks for him in his previous location and then calls for "Els". It is really cute the way she has picked up on different things. If you ask her what Santa says she replies "Ho Ho Ho Christmas" So sweet.

Hope the season is finding you all well.....

Finally remember my password....

Loral has a few boyfriends, this is her Ca-Ca (Conner) he lives across the street. She loves going to see him.

My sweet baby monster!
We were able to get a few quick shots before she wanted to go move more pumpkins around.

Relocating the pumpkins on the front porch.

It is amazing to look a this picture from last halloween and see how much she has changed.

So, I know I haven't posted anything in a long time on here. I have tried but had forgotten my password. I am sure many of you understand that. It seems like there is a password for everything. Next thing you know you'll need a password to get in the bathroom. Things in the Shapter house have been very busy. Loral is growing so fast and she is just a joy to be with. Her vocabulary grows every day. She loves making animal noises. I called on my way home from work last night and all I could hear was "quack-quack-quack" followed by "neigh-neigh" followed by "moo-maooo". By the time she had made it to the cow, the cow had a little attitude. She wakes up in a great mood most mornings. Although some mornings she does not want to get out of bed.....I totally understand that. We had a great Halloween, she was an adorable pink monster. This is my busy time of the semester. We just started checking off or trying to check off our students on their Sterile Field set-up so they can progress to clinicals after Thanksgiving. Matt and I are looking forward to the Holidays this year. Christmas will be a blast with Loral and we can not wait to see her opening presents. I just hope that of all the holidays I may work this year Christmas Eve night will not be one of them. I should know sometime soon! Hope you are all doing great. Sorry it has been so long since my last post.

Wow, what life has in store with a 1 year old in the house.

Life has been so busy for that last several months. It is really amazing how busy we are with a little one in the house. Our lives have always been busy, they are just now enhance by chasing a toddler around. It is so much fun! There is nothing I enjoy more than sitting in front of the toy box playing Little People for what seems like hours. Loral has such a sweet and funny personality. She laughs and cracks herself up all the time. She has really started trying to repeat things we say and do. She is walking ever where and now trying to run especially if she has something she's not supposed to. We celebrated her 1st birthday a month ago in Las Vegas. I went for the National Conference for Surgical Techs and Matt & Loral came along for a little vacation. Lets just say, it was nice to go to Vegas to say we've been but not sure I will go back. I am working on updating pictures on our shutterfly site, if you have not checked it out or don't have the link here it is.
www.theshapterfamily.shutterfly.com
take care

March is almost here

It is now Feb 22nd and the first 2 months of this year have flown by. Loral will be 9 months on Saturday. She has 2 teeth and a 3rd on the way and is crawling everywhere, she even pulls herself up on the couch. Since I started working nights I have had so much more time with her. I was unsure at first if I had made the right decision for our family but things really seem to be working for us now. She sleeps much better at night now and usually wakes herself up around the time Matt gets ready to go and get her. She still wakes up most mornings in a great mood and excited to see us. She loves eggs and that has now become a staple in her morning routine. She is also eating lima beans, black eye peas, green beans, green peas, cheerios, graham crackers, diced peaches and oranges. She had her first grill cheese sandwich today and loved it. If it can be diced small enough for her she will pretty much try it and most of the time likes it. I think she is growing tired of carrots so we are giving them a break for a week or so. I did find some organic frozen sweet potatos and butternut squash that she likes, we are lucky that she is enjoying the new veggies it makes the dinner selection much better and hopefully she will continue to like her veggies as she continues to grow. One of her friend's Josue turned 1 last week so she is going to his birthday party this afternoon. We still have playdates when we can not everyone's schedule is open on the same day so JT and Brandie were over a few weeks ago and Abby and Rebecca came to play yesterday. It is so funny watching them play and interact with each other. It does seem to take them just a little bit to warm up and then they are all into each other and playing with the toys. Loral does like to take toys away from them and it is usually the toys they brought not hers. We recently had to purchase an external hard drive to hold all of our pictures we were storing close to 10,000 pictures on our computer from the past few years. Now that they are switched over the computer is running much smoother, but I can't locate any of the pictures in a hurry. But I did manage to find a few of her crawling hope you enjoy them.

Loral is 7 months now

We can not believe our little girl is 7 mos. old today. It doesn't seem like it was that long ago that we were heading out to the hospital to have her. She is such a blessing. She now weighs 15lbs 10oz and is close to 28in long. Since her surgery she has gained 1 lb in less than a month. It has really made a difference. She nurses and eats food much better than before. She is sitting up on her own and now is rolling in both directions. She loves to play with balls and her other toys, she has fun changing things from one hand to the other. She will just sit and play for 30-45 mins by herself as long as she doesn't see her mommy she's good. She does get fussy and wants someone to sit and play with her and sometime's she just wants us to pick her up. We are really having a great time with her. Christmas was fun. She got some new clothes and new toys and her first snowbaby ornament. I hope to start her an ornament collection that she will hopefully cherish over the years. I will post some new pictures from the christmas festivities. We purchased a new video camera with our christmas gift cards so we are going to see if we can upload a video or two every once in a while. Well the new year is fast approaching. I am working nights now in OB and Matt is still at Progressive Foam. Things are good in the Shapter House! Happy Holidays may God Bless you and your families in the New Year!

Time just keeps flying by.

I will try and make this short and sweet. The last post was just before Halloween so there is alot to say. We spent Loral's first halloween with her cousins Katy Belle & Lindley then went to Grandmoma's to see her other cousins. She was a monkey and the cutest one ever! November was another busy month in the Shapter House. The first weekend in November Matt & I got an elective sitter for the first time so we could go out to dinner for Tabetha's 30th birthday. So Mimi came over to keep Lola. Although we knew she was in very capable hands, it was very weird for us to leave her when we didn't have to. We did enjoy ourselves but we were ready to get home to see her. She and Mimi had a great time. We spent Lola's first Thanksgiving visiting Uncle in the hospital, he was recovering from a vehicle accident. We ate lunch at Mimi & Pop's she loves sweet potato casserole. The day after Thanksgiving Matt & I went to the LSU vs. Hogs game in Little Rock. I was the ever so intellegent one who left without a coat and got very cold quickly. So we left the game early and finished watching it at Dawn's while we waited on Uncle to be transfered from Conway to Children's Hospital. It was a game I hate that we missed but I was not having a good time being rained on. Uncle did get to come home the week after Thanksgiving and seems to be healing well. God was really watching over him because he could just as easily not survived the wreck and his injuries could have been much worse than what they were. The wednesday after Thanksgiving I spent my last full day in the OR. Thursday Lola had her 6 month check up and weighed in at 14 lbs. 11 oz and 27 1/4 in long. She was sick most of the month of November with a cold, pink eye and teething so it was a rough month and we made 2 trips to the Dr. office so we were not surprised at her weight. She still is pretty small for her age but she is doing great. Dec. 5th she had surgery to correct her tongue because she was tongue tied. She did pretty good during surgery and seemed to feel good that afternoon but by Sunday evening the pain meds from friday were worn off and mortin wasn't really helping. Sunday was one of the longest nights we have had in a long time. We were all up for about 4 hours that night. It made for a rough first day in OB on Monday. The 12th was Lindley's 1st birthday and we went to her house for a party. It is so sweet to see Loral and Lindley playing together and K. B. just loves her baby sister and baby loral. I am so glad that they are so close in age. It reminds me of when Hannah and Arianna were little, they were inseperable. The 13th was a sad reminder of our huge loss last year. Lawson was such a great kid, he was an old cowboy soul in a little cowboys body. We as a family miss him so very much. There isn't a day that goes by that he is not thought of. I only wish he could have met his youngest cousin's. He loved little kids and babies, it was so much fun watching him with Katy Belle. I would give anything to have him back with us, but I know he is always with us in spirit. I know this seems strange but anytime Loral wakes in the middle of the night laughing, I alway's say "Lawson leave her alone and let her get some sleep, she can play when the sun comes out". I guess it's my way of keeping him close to us. Christmas is next Thursday and our tree is up and stocking's are all hung by the front door with care in hopes that St. Nick will soon be here. It is during this time of year that we reflect on they past year. Our lives and family have changed so much we have said good-bye to loved ones and welcomed new members to the family. We are grateful for each experience that God has placed in our life and even though we do not always understand the reason we know he has one.
Merry Christmas and May God bless you and your family in the New Year!
Oh yeah and Loral is sitting up on her own, said dada and she has her first tooth!

catching up

It has been a while since I last blogged. It is so hard to keep up with everything that I must get done and still have time to do things I want to do. I have the best intentions but they only get you so far. Loral has been a very busy girl! We traveled to Nashville, TN with some other ladies that I work with and their little boys for a workshop Oct. 10th. Matt was able to go with me so I was able to take Loral along. She did really well on the car ride over so I was happy. There were times on the ride back that she got fussy but I could feel her pain. She visited the Parthenon replica and the park with her Daddy while I was in class on Saturday and then the group of us 5 adults and 3 babies went to have dinner at Joe’s Crab Shack. We all ate pretty good the kids were all getting pretty sleepy, but still well behaved. Sunday morning we checked out of the hotel and had breakfast at the famous “Pancake Pantry”. We arrived shortly after 8:00am and there was a short line, by the time we left around 9:30am there was a line all the way out the door and around the corner down the street. We had a good time and the workshop was very informative.
The following Thursday we flew out to Knoxville, TN for Curtis and Carol’s wedding weekend. It was Loral’s first flight! She did fabulous! I was so proud of her. She slept pretty much the whole time from Little Rock into Memphis and Memphis to Knoxville. We spent the afternoon and evening with the Bridges. Silas has really grown up since we last saw him last November. He is such a big boy now. Matt and Bridges went to hang out with the guys while Erika and I caught up on everything. I have to step back for a second. While in the air we realized that we had forgotten “Mr. T” (Loral’s riding companion) in the car so we were a little panicked. After all Mr. T goes everywhere loral goes. She prefers him over baby Susie. Anyway so before we headed to Townsend Friday afternoon we had to find and Mr.T2 and hope that he would work. Target carried the same looking Mr.T but he was just a little different and she is one smart girl and noticed. She did however let him work until we could get home. Townsend is a small town but this time of year is beautiful with the Smokey Mountains in few at all times and the leaves changing it made for some really pretty pictures. The wedding was very nice and the reception so much fun. Curtis looked extremely happy and Carol made a beautiful bride, we were so glad that we could be there with them. It was Loral’s first time to meet Matt’s Shapter side of the family tree and they fell in love with her at first sight. She was such a trooper through all the events of the weekend and only fussed when tired or hungry. Sunday we met the Bridges Family in Pigeon Forge for lunch and a little shopping then headed back to their house for a quiet afternoon. We took advantage of our extremely talented photographer friend and had him take some pictures of Loral at the same time showing us how to work our new camera. My only regret is that we didn’t get any pictures of Silas and Loral together, maybe next time. We had an early flight out Monday morning and were ready to get home. Loral did just a great on the return flight; she really made me proud all weekend.
We have been working with her over the last couple months with eating baby food from a spoon. With her being tongue tied it has taken longer. We started with just cereal and she didn’t really get much down at first. Now she has really gotten the hang of it and looks forward to her meals. She is not picky right now which I am grateful for. She loves squash, sweet potatoes, sweet peas and most all of her fruits even prunes. We are just now introducing a little juice and she isn’t so sure about that yet. She is growing so fast and is rolling over more now but only in her crib. She will sit-up for a few seconds on her own and loves to jump in her entertainment center. She also loves watching little Einstein’s and Bee-bo her baby signs movie. She makes the funniest noises, sometime she sounds like a prehistoric animal. She loves to laugh and laughs so much at herself. She is just really starting to get the dogs and loves to watch the big dogs (Diggs & Erika) walk around. Diggs now likes to try and give Loral kisses which doesn’t bother her but grosses me out so we try hard to keep it from happening. Loral is such a joy and we are so blessed to be her parents. I love sharing her new adventures with our friends and family and I know that she brings joy and love to their lives as well. We are celebrating her first Halloween tomorrow so hopefully over the weekend I can post a new slide show of pictures from the last month or so.