Its been a while since the last update. Life with 3 has been great, but BUSY! We have been in Alabama for the past few weeks and will be here till the beginning of December. We have stayed busy with friends and family and really enjoying our time at home. We have been on lots of play dates with friends, dinner with supporters, camping as a family, birthday parties, "fellowshipping" and lots more!

Nate is growing SO fast. He will be 11 weeks in just 2 days. Where has the time gone???? He is sleeping through the night (thank goodness) and is smiling and talking all the time. He is loved by his big sister and big brother (is it possible to be loved too much?) and has become a very flexible baby. Don't get me wrong, he still has his fussy moments where he just wants to be left alone but for the most part he is a happy little one!
Graham will be 3 in just a few weeks. He is as cute as ever and is still into everything. He loves any and all super heros and is also into "cars" of any kind. He loves to watch Alabama football with his dad and a Saturday does not go by where he is not dressed in his football jersey. He keeps us laughing all the time and still keeps me on my toes!
Haley is becoming such a big girl. She has her first loose tooth and is just waiting for it to fall out because her Uncle Mark told her the tooth fairy would bring her money. Sure hope that Uncle tooth fairy delivers! We have not been doing school since we have been home but plan to jump back on as soon as we get back to Texas. She is enjoying being with her friends and has loved all the play dates. She is still a little mama at heart and is so helpful with Nate.

chunky monkey

Who would have ever thought that we would have a baby that weighed 9 lbs at a month??? Haley and Graham both weighed 9 lbs at their 3 month appointment!!

bath time fun!

Here is one little tradition that we've been doing!

HALEY O'NEAL

GRAHAM ALEXANDER

NATE COLIN

CINCO!

Well here we are. A family of 5! Nate has been a true blessing to our family!

Haley and Graham can not get enough of him!

Nate Colin

Welcome home Nate!

Well after 38 1/2 weeks we are proud to announce that Nate Colin Sisson is here!

I went to the Dr yesterday morning with no intentions of being induced and left the appointment with these instructions, "get your hubby, eat some lunch, farm your kidos out and head to the hospital".

During the appointment I was telling her that "the baby" (we had not settled on a name yet) had not been very wiggly so she set up a test to monitor his heart rate and then did an ultrasound. She said there was no good reason for him to not be moving like mad (he was the wiggliest baby ever) and she also could not see where the cord was so she felt like it would be best to go ahead and get him out. While I really wanted to go into labor on my own she felt like it would be best to induce. I was induced with both Haley and Graham and to make a long story short-it made my labor very long! I was not to thrilled to have another long labor kind of day.

The short story-labor did not go as long as the other 2. It took about 6 hrs. I made it with only taking something for nausea and something to take the "edge" off. That's correct-No epidural!
For those who know me, that's a BIG deal! Nate arrived after only pushing for a short while. The cord (like the Dr thought) was wrapped all around him and that's why in some (or most) of the pictures his face looks kinda blue. Most of the color is from where the force combined with the cord, caused bruising. After getting the cord untangled, he let out a loud scream and all was well!

Mom, dad and Nate are all doing great. We will leave to go home tomorrow to be with big sister Haley and big brother Graham! They are so excited to see him. With the flu being so bad here they wont let kids under 12 back to see the babies. They did get to see him through the nursery window.

38 weeks and counting

So as of this Sunday I will officially be 38 weeks pg. I was supposed to have my 38 week checkup today at the dr but it got canceled. So with that being said I have no idea if there is any change or not! The suspense is killing me!

I'm not one to post pg pics on the blog (or anywhere for that matter) but thought that the friends and family might enjoy!

I feel like a nerd standing there while Alex takes a picture...

Just the belly. For the most part I'm the same size I was with H & G.

Haley jumped in the pic. Speaking of Haley, she has become VERY attached to Anna. I never thought it would get worse but I was wrong. Anna sleeps in the pack n play, drinks from the bottles, sits in the car seat, likes the boppy and gets nursed every few hours. This should only get better when little man arrives!

Well we couldn't leave Graham out, undies and all!

Baby Showers and Play dates!

Our home church here in Texas threw us a great baby shower last weekend. Divine Providence has become a very special place to us! Thank you DP friends!

Tina & Zori made us this cute cake. Not only was it cute, it tasted yummy!

As you can see I am running out of room to hold Graham. It looks kinda awkward...


On Tuesday we had a great time at the Children's Museum with Tina, Zori and all the kids!

Graham Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Well as most of you may know Graham had a very hard weekend last weekend. We are very thankful that our new addition has not yet arrived. I can only imagine how crazy the weekend "could have been" had he graced us with his presence.

The weekend started by Graham dislocating his elbow. After a few hours in the ER, some pain meds and very uncomfortable x rays it was put back in place and had a splint and sling for 3 days. For those who know Graham, this was not going to slow him down one bit! He still ran, played, jumped off furniture, etc. He is glad to have it off now. I think the hardest thing for him was the fact that he could not get his cars into his pockets with the splint.

When we did not think the weekend would get any worse, Haley woke up sick Friday night (and by sick I mean all over Grahams bed, the floor, wall, you get me?). So now we are STUCK inside with Graham and Haley. We were trying to keep Graham calm all weekend so no more damage would be done to his arm.

On Saturday afternoon Graham fell off the recliner and landed head first on the tile. Normally this is no big deal b/c Graham usually bounces back but this time he cried and when Alex looked at his head I knew this was worse than normal. Just take a gander at the pic. Need I say more?

The bump is slowly going away (1 week later) and his forehead is still bruised. We were sure this would slow him down now. WRONG! He is still just as crazy as ever. I sometimes wonder where this boy came from...

Mom asked me the other day if Alex was like Graham as a kid. "Really mom? Have you seen all the scars on Alexs head? Have you seen how he acts as an adult?" I was kidding myself wondering where Graham came from. He is so Alex that there are days its scary. Maybe number 3 will be just like my brother Andy Man :) Calm, cool and collective!

BaBy ShOwEr!

Some great friends threw a 3 mom baby shower a few days ago for us. There are (or were) 3 moms here that are all prego and due very close together. Ruth was due next week, but ended up having her baby girl the day of the shower, I'm due in Sept and Leanne is due in October.

We had a nice dinner followed by games, YUMMY cake and then presents! Little man Sisson now has some cute new clothes, bath time stuff, bibs and the best part DIAPERS AND WIPES :)

I think my favorite part was the cake that Belinda made. 3 peas in a pod. 2 peas were blue for me and Leanne and the pink pea was for Ruth!

Oh, I cant wait to see this little man in person! BTW, we still don't have a name and it's driving me crazy!!!!!Belinda and her Yummy cakes!!!!
Me & Leanne

Cokes and Canvas

The ladies at the CPCP, here at To Every Tribe, had our 2^nd ladies painting night. The last time we painted a vase with tulips and this time we painted a “funky cross”. We are doing the same paintings that I’ve done back home at Sips & Strokes. This time we also invited all the older daughters. They had a great time. Here is a picture of our crosses.

GRACE.

I just finished talking to my sister Grace and we were giving each other a hard time about not updating our blogs so I'll be the better sister and update :)

It just show happens that this blog has a title of GRACE for 2 reasons. One being that it shall be dedicated to Grace my sister...2nd reason being that God has shown his Grace to Haley and I over the past few days.

Alex left for Mexico last Saturday for a week long mission trip with To Every Tribe. Last year we (the kids and I) got used to him being gone for a few weeks here and there but this year when he went to PNG, things changed. Haley and Graham had a very hard time being away from him. Graham woke up every night crying for Alex and Haley would cry at the drop of a hat. When he came home I told him that we needed to wait a good long time before he ever left like that for a while.
Well I don't think that we even thought twice about Alex going on this trip till the morning of. Haley started crying, not just a little but major crying early in the morning and it only got worse as the day went on. After Alex left it continued on through the night and then continued on throughout church. At this point my pregnant hormones must have kicked in b/c I could no longer keep it together either! We both sat through church crying and then came home and cried. It was miserable. I finally called Alex and told him something had to give. Either he came home or we were going to come to him. Again, I think that my pg hormones were going CRAZY.
Alex talked (I just listened b/c I was still crying) about how this could be a great opportunity to teach Haley more about Gods Grace, Gods Comfort, truly leaning on Christ, not leaning on dad or mom or things of this world. After his "talk" he told me that he thought that it would be best to stay at home, work with her and talk to her in depth about what it means to suffer, I agreed.
After getting of the phone and praying LONG and HARD, God truly showed Grace on me and changed my hard heart to one that wanted to suffer for Him. The neat part-He did the same with Haley! I sat her down, told her that dad was not going to be coming home early and that we were going to stay here and how we have to lean on Christ in times of being scared and afraid and she just looked at me, stopped crying and said, "yep, that's right mom". From Sunday till today there have been no tears in our home. We have prayed for Alex without crying. We have had several talks about what Grace and Mercy are. The Lord is opening up her heart more and more everyday to be filled with Him.
For those that prayed for Haley, thank you. This will truly be a time when we look back and see Gods hand at work in our lives.

funny stories

It seems like a day does not go by when Graham does something that makes me question if he has any of my DNA or if he is ALL Alex.
I've been meaning to post a few funny Graham stories but keep forgetting. Enjoy!

Story 1.
The other day I was in the restroom when Graham opened the door (no knock, or "mom may I come in) and ran right up to my face holding something. When I asked him to step back so I could see he said, "look Mom, its a frog!"!!! For anyone who knows me knows I HATE FROGS. All I could do was scream, then yell at him to get out, and then panic that he would just drop the bull frog in the house. I should have known that he would never drop it b/c when he holds these nasty frogs he holds them so tight their eyes bulge from their heads. BTW, I should have also known that Alex was sitting outside and knew what was going on the entire time :)

Story 2.
I took Graham to Target with me yesterday and I wanted to try on a few skirts so we both went into the dressing room. While I was trying on skirts he said look mom what I found. Like the good mom that I am I just said, "I see Buddy", only problem was I really did not look. Well should know better with Graham b/c when I did look he had a HUGE frog again. Now this time the frog was dead, and someone had stepped on it so all its insides were coming out of its mouth and Graham is just holding this "thing" like its no big deal. What was I to do? I'll tell you what I did, I screamed, told him to put the frog down now and just stood there totally grossed out. After using a half a bottle of hand sanitizer and listing to other people giggle in the dressing room, we left, told the manager and went about our business.

Boys really are so so so different from girls.

Story 3.
This story really proves that kids say the darndest things.
About 2 months ago Haley informed me that her bottom could fit in the hole of the potty seat and that mine could not. She "reminded" me that mine goes over the potty seat. Thanks Haley. Today, we were putting away laundry and my undies were in the basket and Graham asked if they were Haley's. I said "no buddy, they are moms" he said "ohhh, yours big big?". Thanks Graham.

pics with friends

Here are a few pictures that my friend Rachel took of the kids. The first one is from a trip to the zoo. Clearly I'm not too impressed with Graham here. He truly is a character from the Little Rascals.

We also had a play date at her house and the kids just played in the sprinkler.
Graham had a blast with Hayden and Haley had a great time with her bf Ashlyn.

The kids loved being back in our home church (Philadelphia Baptist). The kids went with my mom since we were in Louisville but from what I heard, Graham gave "big" hugs and this is how it turned out. No shock there...
Alex also got the chance to play basket ball with some guys from church. The kids played in the gym and had a great time. They even worked on running relay races. We ate dinner with Josh and Rachel and Haley made banana pudding for us! The boys loved licking the bowl.
Haley, Graham & Hayden playing a little ball. Trying to get 3 kids to look and smile at the same time is not too easy.

Gulf Shores 2009

We ate with Tommy (Grace's man) and his parents at the Hangout the first night. The atmosphere was great for the kids. Thanks Stantons for dinner!

Sisters (Grace)

Sisters (Abbie)

Graham and Grace share a Twizzler!

Graham loves his Aunt Abbie. I love this pic!
Abbie had the idea to put this on his head and it worked great to keep his shaved head from burning and he just looked way too cute!
Haley O and E!

Haley playing in the sand. She loved the "white" sand vs "brown" sand at South Padre.



Tommy took some great family pics for us! I can't tell you the last time we took family pictures like these! Thanks for your awesome picture taking skills Tommy.