Happy Birthday!!

Happy 4th Birthday to my sweet niece Lia!!!

Choosing to See

If you have not read this book "Choosing to See" by Mary Beth Chapman, I highly encourage you to pick up a copy! I nearly cried through the entire book.... not because it was ALL sad, mostly because I saw SO much of MYSELF in her and her stuggles/lifestyle, etc.

Steven Curtis Chapman is making his way to CFC (our church) on Aug. 18th and I simply cannot wait!

My real life Cinderellas

So what's going on in our world? Well...thought I was going to get to return to work next week...but I am not. Due to hiring freeze, they had to rearrange their staff internally and now it will be May before I can start. So I am hoping to pick something up temporarily in the mean time or bug the heck out of people to get pic's taken :-) Lyza started back to school today after her spring break. She did get some really nice days in and a camping trip....last end of the week not so great weatherwise (welcome to Indiana).... so she has really started to want to watch her learning dvd's, write, read, etc......so I cannot complain!

My ducklings arrived for my photo shoots this upcoming weekends! They are sooo cute and my bunny is to be picked up this week. I took Brydon and LaRissa out to do some photos today, but it was to cold to get the baby ducks out! So I will do their photos when I am doing photos in Martin County on March 9 - hit me up if you would like a slot for a sitting!

McKibben Family Sleepover

Full of food, fun, laughter, controversy, dogs, and lots of wii dancing!

Great time was had by all.....(I think), except we didn't go to bed til 4:30 am and the kids were nice enough not to wake us until 10 am!

LaRissa, Brydon, Trish

Lyza, LaRissa, Brydon

Trish and Brydon

Brandon - wii fanatic

Lyza and Brydon snacking

Lyza got her first big girl bike today! (Ummm, too bad it is spitting snow and ice in Indiana after 2 weeks of gorgeous layout weather!!! uggg!). Anyway, a steal at 10.00 on Craigslist! Her only requirement was pink.....and she lucked out with pink AND purple! She wasn't quite so sure about it...didn't want to sit on it...etc. When we got it home we put it on the front porch and she has been out there at least 10x to check on it.....so we'll be spending a lot of time at the 4H center when the weather is nicer practicing!!

OK...so my 4 yr old think she's a gangsta. I'm blaming my cousin, Jordyn H. on this one! :-) Sorry Jordy! The girl is a ham. Everyone thinks she likes to have her pic's taken, in reality, she does not.....she is hard to photograph at this age, she just likes to look at the photo on the screen after I take it....plain and simple. She is a ham though!

Please visit http://mindfulofmine.blogspot.com/ to see more FFF posts/photos!

The moon a few nights ago when it was closest to Earth! Pretty Amazing!

Lyza fed "George" a pop tart....guess he liked it! Wonder how it would go over if I brought him for the Easter photo shoot instead of baby ducks?

Glad we had one last day of fun in the sun and mud! It hasn't rained (Lyza made her own mud!)....but it did spit snow this morning Chris said. Went from mid 70's to this. No wonder everyone is sick. SO wish I had gotten Easter pics out of the way the last few weekends when it was gorgeous out! So....the next week looks dreary and bleak out......and it appears my background check won't be back until next week....so I won't be going to work for another week at least now! I am certainly VERY thankful they are thorough though! I can't wait to start!

Sick...Sick...Sick....

So...what have we been up to? Being sick....ER visits and sleeping around the clock! That about sums it up. Thank you to my mom for keeping Lyza for two days while we slept and recooperated. Thanks to Grandma/Grandpa for meeting my mom up the ways a little bit to hand Lyza off....I know it was an inconvenience for you, but we appreciate it. Lyza, of course, had a blast at my moms in the country playing in the creeks, riding on the golf course, stringing every toy all over the yard! Fun times for an outdoorsy girl! Mom brought her home this morning....

I went into the ER on Saturday after a week of vomiting and such....and it happened at least 12x on Friday night, so I was severely dehydrated. I went to St. Mary's and when I went in my heart rate was 135, so they started working on me right away with IV fluids, IV's in both arms of antibiotics, EKG, blood tests, CAT Scan and on oxygen. My white blood count was high and they found a small hole between my large and small intestine. I go April 6th for further testing to rule out/check for chronhs diseases. They are also sending me for another sleep study because of my severe insomnia in hopes insurance will pay for a small oxygen machine to use as needed (felt good to get that fresh oxygen in), also the high heart rate could be contributing to the lack of sleep with the other problems I'm having....so, it is a just wait and see. Just after i got off all these meds and clean I came home with 5 scrips, of which only 4 I filled.....2 antibiotics and one for nausea...the other I will only be on a week. So I should be good to go. They also said gastritis.

Chris ended up in the ER on Sat. morning....poor guy had to drive himself cause I was so sick....they just gave him an IV and said he was severely dehydrated and chalked it up to gastritis also. It did not improve over the course of the day, so I had to call his Primary Care Dr. on call (just love her!) and she told me to avoid a 3rd 100.00 ER copay to give him phenergan and Ambien and knock him out, but make sure he drank just a bit every few hours, which i did and he is doing a lot better today. Not up to par by any means, but we are both a little better.

SCORE: The neighbor Guy got a new trampoline from a guy on a jobsite and gave it to the girls! Lyza is beyond thrilled and I know Maddy will be also.....right now it is smack in the front yard cause that is all the strength we had to get it to! So now Lyza and Maddy have a REAL LIFE SIZE "Jumpoline" along with Lyza's small indoor "Jumpoline". Perfect for these beautiful spring days! It is supposed to rain the rest of the week but I sure hope I still get to spend some outdoor time with her during her Spring Break!!!

Again - Thanks Mama for helping out with Lyza and bringing her home.....and having lunch with me!

Blessings!

The Very Large Full Moon....Gorgeous isn't it?

Spring Pictures are back underway here in Indiana! We will be doing the ducklings and bunnies again this year! I have started a FB page (Walk by Faith Photography), please hit the "Like" button if you go there, as I am doing some giveaways! Mention you saw my ad on my blog (if you are not one of my best friends!! ;-) and you'll be entered as a double! It will not be a portrait session, so if you are out of town or state, no need to worry! My Facebook ussername is Misty Ronelle McKibben Melvin if you need to look me up that way as well!

I will be doing portraits here in Evansville, IN on April 2nd and 3rd, then in my hometown of Shoals on Saturday April 9th! Please call or email at misty@walkbyfaithphoto to schedule your session. I already have several scheduled and am only scheduling so many this year, as in years past I scheduled Way to many, and to close together! I hope to have some of this gorgeous weather and be doing outdoor photos this year,, however, if mother nature does not cooperate, I will set up indoors again. Below are a few samples!

Camping Trip

We went camping for St. Pattys Day. Yep, I use any excuse to get out of this house! It kinda has it's perks and no perks. #1, I want to leave to get out of this house because going by Madisyns empty room kills me. #2 I get to where I am going and bawl because she is not there with us. So I just can't seem to win. It pretty much sucks. Sorry....I have a little bit of my dad in me and I just tell it like it is. Life sucks sometimes. I am trying to stay busy, but even most days that doesn't help. I am off work for Spring Break next week and waiting on my background check to get back to Toyota...the next week I should be back to work full time and I'm hoping that helps!

On a good note we had good weather.... Sunny and 75 degrees....I know that water had to be freezing with Lyza's little feet in it, but as you can tell...she didn't seem to care!