We're Still Here

Well, I hope that since I haven't been able to write an update until now --Brinley's naptime-- that you all didn't think that we blew away overnight. Overall, the weather has been fairly mild. It continued to rain steadily yesterday afternoon, evening, and last night. So far today has just been quite windy. The windspeed has been in the low 20s with gusts into the low 30s. From looking at the hour-by-hour forecast, it seems as though it is going to continue to be this windy until Wednesday evening or so and there's not any rain in the forecast until next Monday. It seems like we are going to be blessed with a beautiful weekend--one that will be perfect weather for being outside picking up branches, pinecones, twigs and other debris in the yard from the storm. We hope all of y'all have a gorgeous weekend as well, and now that we don't have a storm at our front door to worry about, I am hoping to get a few pictures uploaded for y'all soon since Blogger is still giving me trouble with video. Blessings to all!

Ida Update

Here she comes! www.wunderground.com

When I checked the weather shortly after 10 o'clock this morning, I learned Ida had downgraded from a Category 2 hurricane to a tropical storm overnight thanks to the cool front that came to our area. It has been raining steadily since noon and winds are clocking in at around 12 m.p.h. with gusts upto 21 m.p.h.. As I look at the hour-by-hour forecast, it appears that around 6:00PM or so, we are going to start experiencing 'severe weather'. Winds are going to steadily increase the rest of this afternoon and evening, and by midnight tonight, winds are expected to be at 35+ m.p.h. In the early morning hours the wind will slowly start to die down, the rain will begin to back off and by 7:00AM tomorrow morning our chance of rain will be 1t 70% (versus the 100% that it is now) and winds will have died down to a little over 20 m.p.h. By noon tomorrow, our chance of rain will be 30% with winds still about m.p.h.

I'm going to try to keep y'all updated. I hope to get at least one more blog entry posted before the end of today, but that will probably be after Brinley goes down tonight. Until next time...

(Completed at 2:45PM)

Hurricane Ida

www.wunderground.com

As I'm sure most of you know, Hurricane Ida is currently a Category 2 hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. Although it seems that Ida is headed straight in our direction, at this point the storm is expected to downgrade to a Category 1 hurricane before making landfall then shift to the west towards Florida as it collides with the cool front that is headed our way.

Just so everyone knows, Bruce and I have been watching this storm very carefully this weekend and have already taken the precautions that we feel are appropriate at this time including a quick inventory of our emergency food stockpile to confirm that we have plenty of bottled water and non-perishables, insuring that we have plenty of batteries and that we know where the NOAA weather radio, corded telephone, flashlights, first aid kits and other emergency paraphenilla are. Bruce also went out this afternoon to top-off both of the cars with fuel and purchased a replacement propane tank for the grill should we lose electricity and need to do our cooking outdoors.

Since the rain isn't expected to arrive until early to mid afternoon tomorrow, in the morning Brinley and I are planning to move loose objects that are around the yard into the garage so that they don't become flying missles while we're having 35+ m.p.h. winds. Other than that, I think we're as prepared as we can be at this point. During the next few days, please keep us and all those along the Gulf Coast in your prayers.

Brinley Visits The Doctor

Well, I've been in the process of getting a new entry posted over the past couple of weeks, but I have been having trouble getting Blogger to upload my videos. Sooo...even though I am unable to share a couple of videos that I have, I would like to give you a little update.

The week before last, Brinley had her 18-month well baby check-up--about a month and a half late. Better late than never, right? Overall, her doctor was pleased with her growth and progress. She weighed in at 22lbs. and measured 31in. in height which actually puts her at approximately the 8th percentile for weight and approximately the 11th percentile for height for her age. Although this is actually a pound less than what she weighed at her 12-month well baby visit (which you can read about here), her doctor is not worried. She is eating well and in his words ' right on target otherwise'. None of this was surprising to me. I assumed that she is small for her age because she still has a bit of growing room in 18-month clothes--which she's been wearing for the past year. Yes, a YEAR! As I write this, she is actually sleeping in pajamas that I bought and she wore last winter...craziness! I guess she's going to take after her daddy stature-wise, and I'm just going to have a petite toddler on my hands.

Well, I hope all of y'all have been having this gorgeous, autumn weather that we've been blessed with lately. I am going to continue to try to get the videos uploaded to Blogger so that I can share them with you--which I hope will be soon! Until next time...

This Past Week

Last weekend was what I considered our first 'real' cold spell--you know, weather that actually required sweaters, pants and hats. Below is a short video of Brinley enjoying the cool weather. She loves to pick the tiny leaves off my bushes in my front flowerbed. Nana--my Mom--said that I should teach her to pick the leaves on the top part of the bushes so that I would never have to spend another weekend trimming hedges. Hmmm...that's not a bad idea!



Also, this past Wednesday Brinley had her 18-month well baby visit--nearly a month and a half late. Better late than never, right? Overall, her doctor was pleased with her growth and progress. She weighed in at 22lbs. and measured 31in. in height which actually puts her at the 8th percentile for weight and 11th percentile for height for her age. Although this is actually a pound less than what she weighed at her 12-month well baby visit (which you can read about here), her doctor is not worried. She is eating well and in his words ' right on target otherwise'. None of this was surprising to me. I assumed that she is small for her age because she still has a bit of growing room in 18-month clothes--which she's been wearing for the past year. I guess she's going to take after her daddy stature-wise, and I'm just going to have a petite toddler on my hands.

Anyway, here is a short video of Brinley and her Daddy stacking blocks together Thursday evening after he got home from work. I apologize for the noisy background. I had a load of Brinley's clothes in the dryer, and all the little snaps on her clothes made it sound like I had a handful of gravel in my dryer. Also, I apologize for the lack of commentary--I was feeling quite under the weather that evening with a migraine.



I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. So far, ours has been beautiful as we have been blessed with wonderfully cool, fall-like weather again.

Brinley and Daddy Coloring

Here is a short video from Saturday of Brinley and her Daddy coloring. It was the first time for us to have the crayons and coloring book out, and I think she enjoyed it. She doesn't have a lot of interest in coloring yet--I don't quite think she's grasped the concept yet--but we go over what crayons are which colors, and Bruce or I will draw shapes or write letters and numbers. Enjoy!

More Visitors and Household Projects

This past weekend we were blessed to have my mom and dad come visit us for a few days. Overall, we had a lovely weekend together. My dad and Bruce finished hanging up the gutters on the south side of the back of our home. (This was something that Bruce and his dad started a few weeks before but were unable to finish because time got away from them.) Dad and Bruce also finished laying the insulation down in the attic area over the garage. (When Bruce's parents were here, he and his dad installed the door and layed about half of the flooring of the attic storage with insulation.) Dad and Bruce also put plywood down over the insulation to act as flooring. Of course we had a wonderful time enjoying each other's company and we look forward to seeing each other again during the holidays. Here are a few pictures from our weekend together:

Brinley, Bruce, Mom and Dad working on getting the gutters hung.

A'Pexi sitting pretty and watching everybody else work.

~Brinley Anne~

Brinley pointing out the orange flowers to Mommy.

Brinley checking out Mommy's potted-flowers on the patio.

Nana and Brinley snuggling up to read a story together.