Very Special Giveaway!! :) :) :)

Hi everyone!! :)
I have a special giveaway to share, Jeremy Larson's *BEAUTIFUL* CD! Jeremy sent me an extra copy of his first album to giveaway, it is magical. :)
If you aren't familiar with his music, you will be hooked. :)
I have it playing in my car non-stop! And I'm not going to lie, the first time I heard "Make Believe" (the first video) I cried. :) I met him through my friend Elsie and he is a very cool guy, besides being very talented. ;)
You can check out his online store by clicking here... his second album is just as beautiful as the first (Kevin loves it even more, actually), and Elsie and Jeremy designed some very fun and quirky merchandise that's also for sale! :)
I will be choosing a winner next Monday the 5th, so feel free to leave your name in the comments section for a chance to win. :) If you don't have a blogger account you can still enter by selecting "anonymous" and signing your name there.
Happy Monday!
Charin

Merry Christmas!!!!!
I hope you all have a very Merry one. :)
I'm off to my in-laws to spend Chrismas Eve with them...I'll be back soon with a very special giveaway on my blog! :)
Charin

Eight years ago...

Eight years=
2 1/2 years of dating
a dream come true wedding
buying our first home
changing jobs
changing cars
a few disasters here and there ;)
having our absolute dream come true, becoming parents to our beautiful baby Katie Shae
a lot of growing up
a lot of happiness
a lot of memories
and here we are after 8 years together, with our second little miracle on the way :)
Life is a journey, and even with living through ups and downs life is still beautiful :)

Happy "being us" anniversary Kevin! ♥

Update ;)

I got a call from my Dr's nurse this morning and she said that he is not overly concerned about the protein levels at this time. They were high, but I guess not high enough to warrant anything new being done.
They're still going to monitor everything closely and I'm going back in Monday....I'm really glad that I'm not being put on bed rest! :)
The only thing is that I still *know* that something is going on because of the way I've been feeling, I was hoping that it would be something that had a quick fix. ;)
But baby's fine and I can make it so that's the important thing! :)
Have a happy weekend!
Charin

:)

I wanted to share something a little happier than my past two posts have been. :)
This made me smile a lot tonight...
Mama: "Katie, where's Colin?"
Katie: (Patting Mama's belly) "Here!"
Aww :) A minute went by and Katie said "Hi Colin!" and patted my belly again.
She's going to be the best big sister :)

Further testing is needed...

Don't you just *love* hearing those words? ;)
I went back to see my Dr. today, and I had more protein showing up which means that I may be developing preeclampsia. I am going to be doing a 24 hour test tomorrow that should let us know something for sure.
I'm 28 weeks pregnant today, I just want Colin to stay healthy and we'll deal with whatever comes between now and delivery.
I'm going to go back to resting now. ;)
Charin

Hi :)
I just wanted to do a quick post to explain my lack of blogging (I stillllll need to post Thanksgiving pictures!)
I haven't been feeling the best lately, still trying to get over this yucky cold. I'm going on five weeks of having that, yuck.

And last week we had a scare with Katie, she had climbed onto a kitchen chair and fell off before I could get to her...her gums were bleeding and she had a cut and knot on her head. :( I was so scared, we had been very fortunate in the past and she had never really even gotten a bruise before. We rushed her to the ER for them to check on her, and she is ok now...but that was miserable. :( My poor baby. The only thing she has left from that is a *huge* canker sore that she keeps accidentally hitting with her sippy cup. We'll be really glad when that heals! I'm just thankful that my baby girl is ok.

And then yesterday I called my Dr's office because I had been having Braxton Hicks contractions off and on all day at work. I just wanted them to mark it on my chart, I wasn't all that concerned about it. Anyway, they said that I needed to go to the hospital to have a non-stress test ran on the baby, so that of course made me nervous. :(
I was admitted to a room where they strapped me up to a fetal monitor and they poked my belly around making sure that Colin was being responsive. All of that looks good, his heart rate is good and he was moving around once I laid down.
But the not so great news is that I may be developing preeclampsia. I'm really hoping that I'm not because it is definitely way too soon for him to be born, and from what I hear if you do get it they put you on complete bed rest.
I'm going back to my Dr. this coming week for a follow up and I'm hoping for good news. :)
I'm just a little worried because I do have several of the symptoms, like dizziness and spotty vision off and on and severe back pain and really bad nausea (even when I'm taking my chemo anti-nausea medicine).
So anyway, just trying to take it easy and hoping for the best. ;)
If you read through all of that I'm impressed! :)
Charin

For my local friends...

My friend Gena is a new Stampin' Up demonstrator, which is really good news for me because Stampin' Up is the only place that I know of to get my *dream* scrapbooking pen, the uniball signo!! :) :)
When I was teaching at Scrapbook Addiction I know that some of the ladies that took my classes asked about them...because I use this pen on nearly every page I make! haha

So anyway, if you are interested in ordering 1 (or 5 like I normally do!) send me an e-mail at charinkellie@yahoo.com and I'll get you hooked up with Gena! :)
Happy weekend :)
Charin

Posting in reverse ;)

I need to update from the week of Thanksgiving, but I have tonnnsss of pictures to edit and my computer is being very slow. So I'm going to share these pictures first. :) Katie's so excited about her Christmas tree this year! :) I love it...she keeps grabbing my hand and leading me back to her room to sit next to her "hemas" (Christmas tree)

Can you believe how close it is to Christmas? Unbelievable! We are actually thinking about skipping on putting up our big tree...is that horrible?

Katie and I are on our 3rd week of being sick with a bad cold/sinus infection, and Kevin's got it too now. :( He doesn't have it as bad and I'm really glad.

We had a wonderful time seeing everyone at Thanksgiving, but I wish we had been feeling better. Katie is cutting four teeth and was really, REALLY grouchy! I felt so bad, everyone was trying to snuggle her and she was having none of it! Poor baby, she just felt really bad. She wasn't sleeping hardly at all either, which made things interesting. ;)

We miss everyone and wish they could come back for another week. :)
Aww, and my family threw me a surprise baby shower for Colin! So sweet...we got lots of cute things for him. :) He's moving around a lot more lately, I love it...if he comes almost two weeks early like Katie did he'll be here in 2 1/2 months! It's going to be time before we know it. :)

Have a great week everyone, I am going to try to update from Thanksgiving soon! :)
Charin