Monday and Instagram

So the weekend had to come to an end unfortunately and now it's back to everyone's usual routines!

This weekend neither of us had big plans just a lot of family time and enjoying the really really beautiful weather we had here....take that back Saturday was fa-reezing but yesterday was low 80s and just beautiful! Erica made it back to church yesterday and today was her first day back to work since her surgery:( boo but atleast she's feeling almost back to herself!

Onto other things our new favorite app is Instagram! We've both had it for awhile but have started using it a lot lately and love it. It's pretty cool cause you can take pictures and customize the look of them and then post them for people to see. In order to see others pictures you have to follow them just like you would on say twitter. If you wanna follow us look for Erica under ericamcknight and look for Aletha under aheller617. Here's some of our latest Instagram pictures and if
you don't have it give it a try it's a convienant little way to document everyday life without lugging around a camera!

**By the way this was done on the Blogger app so hopefully this post comes out looking normal!

Have a happy Monday y'all!!
-Erica & Aletha

We're Still Here

Warning: This is a long post :)

Sorry Friends, we are all still alive and well. Sorry there hasn't been a post the last few days, Aletha's computer got drink spilled on it, so her hubby is working on getting that fixed and me, well I have been in the hospital. We plan on getting back in the blogging world this weekend.

Where do you want me to begin? to say this past week has been crazy would be a total under statement. Let me start with a few months ago. One morning  I woke up and was bent over double, I was experiencing so much pain. I was throwing up and couldn't stand up straight. I just felt like crap. I called the Dr. and he asked me to come in. After being checked out  he sent me for a sonogram on my Gallbladder. At that time they didn't see any Gallstones but said my Gallbladder measured smaller then the average size gallbladder. I decided to not move forward with any other testing and I would just wait it out and see how I felt.

2 weeks ago this Friday Miller came home from school and was up all night that throwing up. He had caught the bug that was going around this school daycare. Thanks to some good Lysol and handsantizer no one else in the house got it (knock on wood). The next day everyone felt fine, we stayed around the house and that afternoon I was able to attended a BEAUTIFUL wedding of a young lady I use to work with, I still have the honor of working with her mother.

Me, Mitchell, Amy, Mom, Robin

The rest of the weekend was great. The following Wednesday I got up as normal and got ready for work, kissed my boys bye and out the door I headed. When I got to work, I had started to not feel great but was going to deal with it and get my work done. Come about 9:30 it was all I could do not to throw up, it all just hit so fast. I sent my WONDERFUL supervisor an email and told her I was leaving for the day. I called Mitch told him the bug had bit me and I was going home to crawl back under the covers. From 10:00 - 12:00 when I called the Dr. I had thrown up every 10 minutes, I couldn't even hold water down, I was bent over double couldn't stand up, in pain. The Dr. told me I needed to head to the ER, my daddy came to pick me up and Mitch was soon to meet me there. When I got there they got me back and hooked me up to an IV, gave me meds to help with the throwing up and I crawled into the small lumpy hospital bed.

They performed a CT scan on my belly, and sent me back to the little room in the ER to wait for the test to be read. I laid in the bed while me sweet husband rubbed my hair and kissed my forehead waiting for the results. When that cute little small gray headed Dr. came in, wearing his little blue scrubs and said "well I have an answer to your sickness" I could have kissed him. He said I had mush in my Gallbladder (Gallbladder disease) a stone in and on the outside of the Gallbladder along with a stone on my appendix. He was going to send me to a room and I would meet with my surgeon in the morning and get both taken out. That night I was able to get as much rest as you can away from my bed, my two little men and hooked up to IV's.

The next day I met with my surgeon and everything was on go for that night, yep I said that night at 5:00.... that means I had to go ALL day with no food or drinks, I really didn't feel like eating but dang a nice cold sprite would have been nice.  I had visitors, phone calls and family that came by that whole day to keep me company, along with my wonderful handsome husband that never left my side. My friend Lindsey was able to drop off a book and few magazines for me to read.

If you know our friend Lindsey you know she is a germ hater! Her two sweet boys where having a party that weekend so she wanted to keep all sickness out of their house!

(sorry these next two pictures are super small but when I enlarge them they get blurry, so who knows)

 And Aletha spent several different times over there but this time she brought sweet Addi to see me!  

 I am one lucky girl, I have the worlds best friends, church family, and family. Bless my friend Amanda's heart she came to the hospital alot, she works there third shift so every time she would come I would be knocked out! That afternoon they came around 4:00 to take me down to the holding room to get me ready for surgery, they had an emergency in the OR so it pushed my surgery back to 8:00, my sweet family never left my side I know they were so tired. Surgery went great both came out with no problems, but I woke up SO sick, I tell ya throwing up going to thru the motions after not eating or drinking for two days and then having gas in my chest and stomach was some pretty painful stuff. After LOTS of meds, and being taking care of by the WONDERFUL surgical service team I was back in my room ready for bed by midnight, Mitch and I both slept the whole night it was nice!

this was right before they took my back to the OR, you can tell I was tired by the bags under my eyes

The next day was spent recovering, sleeping, lots of sprite drinking, facetimeing with my boys and visiting with friends and family. I was able to come home Saturday. My week this week has been very off/crazy/wild/different but yet so blessed. My parents have been awesome with helping with the boys they have picked them up everyday, took them to their house, fed them, bathed them, and then brought King home at bed time, put him to bed, picked up more clothes for Miller then took him back to their house to spend the night. Tuesday night my mom had to work so Aletha stepped in and got my kids fed, in the bed then stayed with me until my hubby got home. AWE speaking of my hubby this man is my rock I can't tell you or him how blessed I am to have him in my life he has been by FAR the best. He has taken care of me, the house, my flowers, everything you name it he has done it, he even washed my hair over the sink because I wasn't able to shower. Love I tell ya LOVE. Our Sunday school class has provided meals for us this week and boy have we eaten good, YUMMY. We are so thankful for our church family.

I plan on Sunday starting to get back to my "normal" life. I haven't been able to pick up, love on, cuddle, anything over 10 pounds, yes that would mean both my boys :( this week and I still have a few days to go. I plan to go back to work on Monday and follow up with my Dr. on Tuesday. Thanks again for everyone that has prayed for me and my family. I LOVE YOU GUYS!

Sorry this has been such a long post, sorry we have been a little MIA.. hang with us, sorry some of these pictures are blurry :( 

 Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

- Erica

Wordless Wednesday

Surgery and Stomach Bugs

Well as of yesterday Erica had to head to the ER for at first what she thought was a stomach bug.  Let me start off my saying she at first thought this because holy cow there is one going around our church and church daycare!  Erica and I help with a kids class at our church on Wednesday nights so while Erica was at the hospital last night I along with our friend Kristie still took on the three year olds.  I didn't know before getting there that there had been a stomach bug going around....but I shortly found out after I was thrown up on...or should I say my Toms were thrown up on!  So I told Erica just think about it while she was at the hospital throwing up I was being thrown up on! Nice huh.  After I got home last night I couldn't help but to laugh at how crazy the afternoon at church ended up being. 

So fast forward to today they ended up keeping Erica overnight at the hospital because they determined it was her gallbladder that was causing her so much pain and it needed to go!!  While they were at it they also decided to take out her appendix too.  So while Aiden was at school today Addi girl and I went to visit Erica!!

We couldn't quit laughing at this little sponge thing she had to use to moisten her mouth since she wasn't allowed any food or liquids.

This was me and Addison's attempt at frownie faces!

Erica's surgery is scheduled for 5:00 and they took her down for prep around 3:30.  Pray for the surgeons and peace for her.  This is her first surgery so I know she was a little nervous, I would be too.  Also pray for a quick recovery as I'm sure she's ready to get home to her boys!

One more day and it'll be the weekend!  Happy Thursday everyone!

-Aletha

  

Wordless Wednesday

It's a BABY!

We are planning our friend Jen's baby shower and we can't wait! This weekend if the weather cooperates we are going to do her maternity pictures. We have some great ideas.

Last night the two of us got together and enjoyed the beautiful weather by sitting on the back porch. We had our bottle of wine, notebook, computer and we were ready to roll.

If you know Jennifer then you know she and her husband are very country, so what better theme then to have a country baby shower. We came up with some great ideas and look foward to sharing that day with her and making it special.

We both also share the LOVE of photographing our familes and friends. We don't by means call ourselves photographers but two people that LOVE being behind the camera so we look foward to hopefully taking Jen's pictures this weekend, PRAY for good weather.

Sorry this is short and sweet we both are tired! Have a happy Tuesday!

- Erica & Aletha

Jogging For Jonah

Soooo we've mentioned it on here plenty of times before but now it's time to get serious!

The date's getting closer and not to mention a sweet baby girl here locally at Brenner's just passed away from EB.  We still need volunteers so if you're local hit us up.  We still need sponsors so hit us up on that too!

Now if you wanna run the race then if you want to run click Here and this will take you to where you need to go to get signed up for the race!  There's also an option to just purchase a shirt and that money is going to Debra as well!  Please please if anyone is interested help us out!  Patrice is so fired up about this race and we both are wanting to help in anyway we can!

Starting nect week after we sign up for ourselves for the race we will have a link to our own little pages that if you would like you can sponsor us! For now Here is Patrice's personal page to go donate to!  Her goal was $500 and within 2 days she has way surpassed that and is now into the $2000!!!  Now if that isn't a god thing then i don't know what is!

I mean if we can't convice you then you leave us no choice but to pull out the big guns!

I mean seriously this is Jonah himself and how can you say no to that sweet face?

Have a good Friday y'all!  And go register to race!

-Erica and Aletha

Change.......

Over the past few weeks I have really wanted to spruce up the house. This time of the year, with Birthday Party's, weekend get ways, family beach trips and other fun summer activities I really don't have to extra money to spend a whole lot on redoing the inside of the house. If I bought something every time I wanted to do a little sprucing I would be buying something every week everyday.

 I took an old basket that was in the closet and threw several rolls of toilet paper in it and stuck it in the corner of the bathroom!

 Basket : Target

 I had these two cute little orange bowls hiding away in the bathroom so I pulled them out, filled them with pine cones and placed them on the top/back of the toilet.

 Bowls: Target

Pine cones: Wal-mart

US Picture: Target

My mom gave me this little yellow collinder. I used it to hold our dyed Easter eggs this Easter! Any ideas I could fill it with over the summer?

Collinder: Homegoods

placemats: Target

 Have you ever looked at the price for the K-Cup holders? EXPENSIVE! So my love for target saved the day. I now fill a $6.00 cookie jar with my cute little K-cups

Cookie Jar: Target

 Keruic: Wal-Mart

 We never used our fire place for what it really is suppose to be used for. So a candle holder and metal green star to change it up a little.

 Candle Holder: Kirkland's

Star: Homegoods

 We moved Miller over to his big boy bed from the crib at 2 1/2 so I put up bed rails to keep him from falling out, but now that he is 4 he really doesn't need them but I guess it is a mental thing for him so I put pool noodles under the mattress cover/sheet. (Idea from Pintrest)  

 Noodles: Target

Sheets: Target

Converter: Target

That was just a few things i did to change it up a little around here, as much as I like change I'm sure it want be long and I will sprucing it up more around here!

- Erica

Wordless Wedesday

Heller Easter Weekend

So we are back from visiting family this past weekend for Easter and trying our best to get back

into our normal routine!  We went to West Virginia which is where my daddy is from and where I was born (actually is what Virginia but same thing right?) and it's where most of my dad's siblings still live.  I love getting together with all of them because for one there's ALOT of them.  My dad has 7 brothers and sisters (there originally was 8) so there are tons of cousins and second cousins! 

Even though my Mamaw passed away a few years ago my Aunt now lives in her house so it's still the usual meeting grounds for family and I love getting to see my kids get into and love the things I did when I was their age.  So sorry this might be picture overload so bare with me.

We started out Friday afternoon dying Easter eggs.

The kids spent the night with my parents that night so the next morning I picked them up and we hit the road.  The kids slept most of the way so we didn't have to make any stops so we got there in record time!

And then there was creek playing

And shotgun shooting!

We went back to our hotel that night and good grief the kids were wired up from playing and being around all the family that they didn't fall asleep until 11:00!

 Thank goodness they FINALLY crashed!  This Easter Bunny was ready to get the show on the road so she could hit the sack!

Then we headed to church Easter morning and after that headed back to my Aunt's house to have a big ol' lunch with the family!

Better put on some shades!  My legs could seriously blinde someone with their whiteness!

My little firecracker was a mess that day!  She wouldn't leave her head band in her hair and was not having getting her picture taken! So sadly I never got a picture of the four of us:( 

 Me and my momma

My mom and dad

Some more gun shooting!

Then we had our Easter egg hunt.  (If you're still following along bless your heart I know this is a ton of pictures)

And here is my last picture.  This is my daddy with all his living siblings.  It was especially nice to get the whole family together because my Uncle on the far left has been very sick lately, like not good at all sick.  He's been on dialysis for so many years, way more than a person should be and this past year his poor body is just gradually getting tired.  If you're the praying kind could you say a pray for his comfort?  It was so sad to see him so frail and weak.  I don't have to ask for peace or any of those things, he's the most godly man I truly think I have ever met and I have no doubt when his time comes I know I'll see him again some day!

There you have it!  Our Easter weekend.  We had so much fun and always do getting together with my daddy's family!  Aiden is already asking when we're going back!!

Happy Tuesday Y'all!

-Aletha