Halloween 2010

Addison was a kitty cat for Halloween and she was the cutest, sweetest little cat ever! She was so good the whole night and ever fussed once about wearing her costume (just fussed a little when she saw food...the girl always wants to eat!)

On her way to Trick or Treat!
Such a cute little grin. I think she must have known that we were going to be getting some candy!
She loved all of Jordan's Grandma's (Tutti) decorations, especially the cats!
Most of the pictures I took were of her chasing after the candy bucket that Jordan was holding. She was loving the candy corn!
Isn't this just the most adorable little face in the world? And you want to know what she's looking at so intently? What else but her Candy bucket!

Tutti has a small fish pond in her yard and Addison really enjoyed looking at it. She kept doing her sign her fish (hands together and "swimming").

Yeah, this didn't last very long. She grabbed a whole handful of candy corn and tried to shove them all in her mouth. Silly kitty!

Our next stop was Jeff and Gena's house. She stood by the yard display and when we went to leave she then told each individual pumpkin and flower "Bye Bye." She's really into telling everyone ( and thing) "Bye Bye."

Addie and Daddy.

With Nana and Papaw.

With Nana.

Daddy, Mommy and Addison. Notice the tennis balls in her hands. She is obsessed with any ball that she sees and must hold one in each hand. She's gotten good about knowing that she can't take them with her and that she'll get to see them when she comes back to where ever she left them.

With Papaw

We stopped by the Trunk or Treat at the church that Chuck and LeeAnn go to. We only briefly crossed paths with LeeAnn and Salem. But it was long enough for a photo op! Salem was dressed as Charlotte from Charlotte's Web such a cute little spider!

Our next stop was GranDee and Grandpa's house. I didn't get any good pictures of her with them this year (Lots from last year as you can see here). She had to relax a bit in her favorite chair and eat some raisins while we were there.

This one is cute with my dad and Addison cheesing it up at each other. They love each other so much! Sweet!

Hope y'all had a great Halloween, too!

Pictures from Mom's Party

Addison had such a good time at Mom's surprise party. She loved all of the rocking chairs that were in the building and played with her toys and the other kids there.
When we first got there on Saturday to finish the set-up, Addison just sat in this big rocking chair and rocked for about 10 minutes (which is a long time for her to be still). She had to be holding her blanket, doggie, baby and her juice the whole time. And that was also while she was in her car seat and while being taken out of her car seat. Very tricky maneuvering...
Sweet girl!Here's the sign we made for Dad to park the car in for Mom. She was so shocked when she realized what was going on!

Me, Kyla and Mom. We all ended up wearing greens and blues so we were coordinating.
My cutie and me.
Just a tiny portion of the food that we had.
Addison and Her Great Meemaw. We had such a good time!

The weekend

We had a good, fast-paced weekend.



Friday was a busy day at work. I work at SECU and we had member appreciation day with our kid's mascot FAT CAT (my manager, haha) in attendance. Kyla brought Addison to see him and to eat lunch with Mommy. We had so much fun. She was intrigued with FAT CAT and wasn't scared of him until she saw him take his head off. She still didn't cry or scream but she ran up to me and held onto me for dear life. I held her and she refused to move at all in my arms, just clinged onto me. It was cute. As soon as he put to costume head back on she was fine and even was "calling" (here, kitty, kitty, kitty...) him to get his attention. Addison also decided that it was great fun to walk around from person to person begging them for "bips" (chips) and "tuk-dies" (cookies).



My Mom turned 50 last week and we had a small family dinner to celebrate then. What she didn't know was that my dad, sister and I were planning a surprise party for her for this past Saturday. Kyla and I were busy planning, buying and preparing food and decorations for the party and my mom couldn't figure out why we were hanging out so much and not cluing her in to what we were spending our time doing. I just knew that she would figure it out because she always figures things out early. But she ended up not having a clue about it and we really got her good! It was fun and I hope that she enjoyed it!



Later Saturday night we went to a friends house for an early Halloween costume party. First we went to Jordan's sister's house and put Addison to bed there. She only lives a few houses down from the party. Jordan went as Caesar complete with toga, wrist bands and headband and I was a black cat, although I think it looked a bit more like cat woman. I'm not really into costumes for adults (mostly because the woman's costumes are all so, so trashy and I'm not very creative to be able to come up with my own ideas) so I didn't have any old costumes laying around or any inclination to buy one so I wore dark jeans, tall, black boots, a black turtleneck then added a cat mask and tail. Yeah, it was kind of cheesy but I figure I can wear it again when we take Addison trick or treating because she's going to be a kitty cat (white and pink and super cute!). Also in attendance were a witch, a monk, a Scotsman (in a kilt), a policeman, Betty from the Flintstone's (adorable), a nerd girl, and my favorite, Russel and Walter from the movie UP!. They were so, so cute. The girl was Russel with the little boy scout uniform and backpack with balloons tied to it and her boyfriend was Walter with baby powered hair and walking stick with tennis balls on the ends. They just needed a big bird named Kevin and a golden retriever named Dug and they would have had the whole cast!



The party was fun! We ate and played games and watched funny you-tube videos. A few of my friends were there and we broke off from the party and were having some great girl talk. Right in the middle of laughing and having fun I kind of sarcastically joked something about how I should have been pregnant and had to have been dressed as a big pumpkin. I normally don't talk much about my miscarriage and I'm still not really sure why anything about it came out of my mouth but when it did, all of a sudden I was sobbing. I felt so bad for being a downer, but those girls, Kirby and Katie, were so sweet and supportive. They embraced me and talked to me and we all shared different struggles that we are all facing. I'm actually kind of glad that I had my mini-break-down because I obviously needed to get it off my chest right then. I also feel like it brought us closer. We have decided that we need to start having a "girl's day/night" at least once a month and the first one is scheduled for this weekend. I'm excited about it!



I feel fine most of the time even though I still think about losing the baby and not being pregnant a whole lot, I'm just not letting it consume me. I have so many positive things in my life and so many blessings to count from God. I know that no one expects me to "be over it" and I'm still grieving, but sometimes the grief just sneaks up on me. Friday was National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Day. So I was thinking about it even more than normal but didn't really make myself the time to process it. I was so busy and consumed in party planning and costuming and taking care of Addison that I didn't really let myself "go there". I also think I was trying to avoid it. I have such conflicted feelings because I want to be over it (although I know I never will be) but I also feel bad if I'm not thinking about it and still grieving. I think of the women and families that have lost babies multiple times or other family members that they really knew and loved and I feel that what they are going through has to be worse than what I'm going through. But I guess grief is what it is in any circumstance and maybe it's like sins. Although we want to see it that way, no one sin is any worse than another sin in God's eyes. As humans we like to add degrees to everything or turn it into a "good" to "bad" scale. Maybe it's to make more sense of things and add organization or maybe just to make ourselves feel better about things we have done... I don't know.



I'm rambling...again. This was supposed to be about the weekend and yet I've made it about grief, like I always end up doing. I really am doing much better and I'm happy.



Our weekend was a good one, even if I just laid around the house Sunday afternoon and got nothing better done than catching up on watching my DVRed shows. :) I have a huge pile of laundry to do, but that's okay!

*I have some pictures to add but I can't get it done at the moment so I may come back and update. Or I might just do a separate post... Stay tuned. :)*

Counting Blessings

God is ABLE to do ABUNDANTLY, EXCEEDINGLY more than ALL you can ASK or IMAGINE. Ephesians 3:20

I'm counting my blessings right now. And I'm overwhelmed with how many there are to count. God has blessed Jordan and I so, so much and I'm trying my hardest to not take anything for granted. There are so many bad things that I could to choose to focus on, but I want to be optimistic instead of a downer. We have so many things that are changing and unstable and decisions to make that are being based on how other things turn out. I'm trying to not stress over things and take every new day as it comes at me.

Be anxious for NOTHING, but in EVERYTHING, by prayer and petition, with THANKSGIVING, present your requests to God. Phil 4:6

I've recently been reevaluating my walk with God and I'm seeing so many flaws on my end (and not surprisingly-none on HIS end. haha). I'm working at being more patient, less quick to judge, more compassionate and a better listener, among many, many more things. My prayer life is not where it needs to be, so I'm working on getting it back to where it once was and where it should be.

Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. I Thessalonians 5:16-18

I'm also working on reading the bible more. I thought about finding a devotional book to help me along with it, but that task alone seems daunting to me, so I figured the best way to get into God's word is to dive right in. I now get daily emails from one year bible online that gives me the link to an old testament passage, a new testament passage, and a little bit of Psalms and Proverbs each day. I like that set up because you get a little bit of easy-to-read with the harder-to-read.

I'm not telling you this to brag, but to help me to be accountable. I'm also hoping to encourage others to join in and re-evaluate your own walk with God.

Also, please be in prayer for my sister, Kyla. She's one of the reasons I'm trying to do better and make wiser decisions. She has recently made some major changes in her life and is striving to do good and follow God. It's been a rough transition for her and is not made easier by the fact that she has bi-polar mood disorder. This means she struggles with depression and manias and making out-of-character decisions. Kyla has made such a courageous change in her life. It's never easy to cut out things that you enjoy or that give you immediate gratification, even when you know they are wrong. I'm praying for her to be at peace with her decisions and accept that she may always have to struggle with her mood disorder. I'm praying for her to be able to let go of the guilt that she feels and know that God has 100% forgiven her. I'm praying for guidance as I talk to her and help her move along with her life.

Happy Monday!

Our Weekend (Including Pictures-Gasp!)

This weekend was busy at the Cline house!

On Friday, Jordan and I tried out a new Japanese place that had just opened right by our house. It was good food, but a little pricey and a super long wait. Poor Addison was getting so tired and she was ready for her food. She did well considering we didn't leave the restaurant until almost 8:30.

Saturday was CRAZY!! We planned on being at the car lot most of the day to get things organized and work with the new computer system that we just got. We got there at 8:30 with Addison in tow. To say that we were busy all day (or all last week) would be an understatement. Since Tuesday we've bought 7 cars from dealer auctions (in addition to the ones we already had), sold 5 and taken in 2 trade-ins. Most of that was done on Saturday while we were trying to get everything added and taken off the inventory for the computers! Addison was so, so good and took a nap in the back room (of our tiny, open office) while we were selling a car in the main room. We finished up around 5, so I ended up working my normal hours on my day off. There's no hourly paycheck but hopefully after a while everything's going to pay off. It's really an exciting time and it helps that we have a lot of fun and enjoy being with our friends/business partners.

After we finished up at the car lot, Jordan dropped off Addison at her Nana and Papaw's house to spend the night. We had a few hours to get ready to go out on a double date with some friends. We didn't start the date until almost 8:30 and after dinner and bowling, we didn't get home until after midnight. Needless to say, I was exhausted!

Sunday was much more relaxed. Addison came back home to us at 8 and we played and napped until church. She was such a good girl and kept saying "Baaaybeee" because we sat behind some friends who have a 4 month old little boy.

Here she is Sunday afternoon before dinner.

I loved her little outfit! People at church kept calling her Pippy Longstockings because of the tights. Such a cutie!

This is after she saw me with the camera and came running over to it. Little Ham! She wanted to sit in my lap because I had the camera, so I gave the camera to Jordan so he could take a picture of us. Well then Addison wanted to sit in Jordan's lap since he now held the camera.

So we went back and forth taking pictures of each other with Little Miss Thing!

(Please ignore my crazy hair! I'd been cleaning and cooking all afternoon.)

We enjoyed our weekend with Addison (as I always do!). Now ready for a busy week with (hopefully) lots of cars being sold!

Post I Can't Seem to Finish

I don't know all the different places/directions this post is going to go, but I'm sure it won't be organized. I've been working on this post for the past 2 weeks and just can't seem to finish it...


It's been a while since my last post. I don't have any good excuse for not writing besides not having time or just not feeling it. I do feel like I'm in a better place than I was a couple weeks ago. I'm still healing and grieving but I'm not consumed by loss and sadness anymore. I have moments that I'm really sad and let my mind wander, thinking of all the things I should be preparing for and worrying over. I still think of things that I was going to have to do before February when the baby came but then I catch myself and those thoughts are immediately replaced by emptiness and slight bitterness. I'm not angry at God and I have accepted my situation, but that doesn't mean that I don't still feel disappointed and frustrated. I've been in the middle of conversations with friends, talking about babies or the second child or future plans and I have to really think before I say things. I was in the mindset of having another baby in February for almost four months and its hard to just make my preset thoughts change overnight. I know I've had a month to adjust but things still hop into my head at any given moment. I'm still feeling the sting at times.


I've been thinking about timing of when to plan for another baby. It still really stresses me out. Although my last pregnancy was not 100% planned (it was 100% wanted) and caught us a bit by surprise, I was very content with the spacing God was giving us between children. Now, after I had decided that 21 months was going to be a wonderful age difference between Addison and Baby #2 and that it was exactly what I wanted, I have to accept that that is no longer in God's plan for our family. I still would like to have our kids close in age. That leads me to trying to decided weather I can handle the stress and worry that I know would come with being pregnant again right now or wait a little while. I also have the added stress of paying for the miscarriage and D&C (which from the Insurance explanation of benefits, looks like its going to be nearly as much as having Addison. lovely. It costs as much to have a tiny baby taken from you as it does to birth a healthy, full-term baby) and wondering how long that will take to pay that off before we'll have more hospital bills with the cost of having another baby... The financial aspect doesn't bother me as much as the emotional horrors that await me when I'm pregnant again (It will be a long, stressful, worrisome 40 weeks when it happens). Jordan is more caught up on the financial side. It's a lot to think about. I'm praying for guidance.


On to lighter things. (I really didn't mean for this to be a downer post. And I really do feel better overall but there is not a moment that goes by that I'm not thinking about it in some aspect.) So I think I might have caught the Pandora bug. No, I'm not getting sick. For those of you that don't know what Pandora is (first, go to website and browse) it is a brand of jewelry. What I am particularly interested in is the bracelets with beautiful, interchangeable beads. They can be quite expensive, if you buy them new from jewelry stores. That's why I am looking on Ebay! I'm not really all that concerned about having the "real" thing and I'm okay with the cheaper options that are available. I can see this turning into something that will be time consuming. I'll have my co-worker, Sonya to thank for that. :)

Addison has been such a mess! She has a huge personality and really is starting (or continuing, rather) to talk a lot. She calls me Momma and sometimes Mommy (although normally when I'm trying to get her to say Mommy, she say Yummy-she is a total food-oriented baby!). She calls Tripp "Bip" so we'll hear her saying "NO, NO, Bip!!" She's starting to say GranDee and Grandpa. She still says Dadda (occasionally Daddy), Nana, and Pawpaw (for my dad and Jordan's dad). She's also started to say Ellett ("Ay-Yett") and tells him to come on (Ellett is her 10 month old cousin that Gena keeps also. They are together 3 out of 5 days per week). It's really cute to hear her try to imitate what we say. We laugh at her and she just grins so big and is so proud of herself. One of my favorite parts of the day is when I'm driving Addison home after picking her up in the evenings. We talk and sing and make faces at each other in the car (in the mirror-don't worry, I'm a very careful driver). I just love seeing that little face crinkle into a grin and hearing that adorable little voice sing along with the songs I'm singing, especially after I've been away from her at work all day. We enjoy going on walks in the evenings with Daddy and "Bip". We have a great, shadowy area to walk near our house and try to take advantage of the slightly cooler weather right before the sun goes down. Addison just chills back in her stroller and takes everything in. I'm so glad that she likes to ride in her stroller.

We've been staying pretty busy and its been fun. I mentioned in an earlier post that we now have a car lot. That has taken lots of time, but its been fun because we both enjoy spending time with our business partners, Kirby and Dustin. Kirby works with Jordan and we've been friends with her and her family for several years now. They have two boys, Banyon-4 yrs and Sylas-2 yrs (They are 20 months apart. It was neat for me to see kids at almost the same age difference ours were going to be.) The boys and Addison play pretty good together. Addison and Sylas are almost exactly one year apart and they don't always know how and when to share things. Banyon is definitely the older sibling and likes to be in charge. They have had to play and keep each other occupied while we try to figure out all of the in's and out's of selling cars. We've already sold several, too quickly to keep anything on the lot. It's really exciting to be involved with the starting of a business, especially when it has a lot of potential to do well (we think it does, anyway!). Our official name is Pay Here Auto Sales. We chose that to highlight the fact that we will finance cars if you don't have the cash on hand to buy it. I won't bore you with all of the details, but it's definitely been a learning experience. There are a ton of papers that have to be filled out (and notarized) (and all done exactly the way the DMV wants it) and it was certainly intimating for the first sale. It's been fun so far!

I guess that's all I have in me right now. Hopefully I'll be back before next month (and with some more interesting happenings).

Big Sister

Yesterday Gena told me how much of a helper Addison is turning into. She likes to bring Ellett things when her Nana asks her to. It's really hard for me to see how good she is with Ellett and how loving she is with her baby dolls. All I can think about is how good of a big sister she would've made in just 5 months. I can also see that she gets jealous of Ellett, too. I know that she'll be a good big sister when the time comes, but I was so worried about how she would be at only 21 months as an older sibling. Now I can see her comprehending things, following directions and helping out when asked and I just wish that things had panned out differently and that our family was going to be spaced out as I had thought it was.

I still want to have our children be close in age. That leads me to having to deal with the question of when. When will we try again? I don't know the answer to that. I think that we aren't going to start trying right away. I feel like that would be stressful and that I need a break for a while from thinking about pregnancy related things. Not that I don't want to hear about other people's pregnancies or babies. I can deal with that and I don't want people to shy away from the topic because they don't want to hurt my broken heart more. Really, it's okay. I just don't want to think about myself being pregnant for a while. Several months at least. We'll just wait and see what God holds for our future.

I came across Addison's "big sister" shirt that I bought for her a few months ago. It's a long sleeved 2T and I keep thinking that she might not be able to wear it whenever the time comes. I'm thinking of getting a memory box to put all of the cards and pregnancy related things in. I keep thinking of different things that I want to put in a place to keep but get out of my sight for a while. I don't want to throw things away but I also don't want to be looking at them all the time. Things like my ultrasound pictures from my 8 week appointment, all the cards and messages people have given me, the miscarriage pamphlet from the hospital. Now Addison's Big Sister shirt may go in it too. I've been thinking of calling it my "heartbreak box." Too sad? I don't know... maybe I'll call it something else.

I feel like all I do is ramble and wallow in all my posts. I'm certainly not trying to have myself a great big pity party. This blog has just happened to become my outlet for getting some emotions out that I wouldn't necessarily express to anyone in person for fear of breaking down. If I get upset and start crying while typing a post then I can just stop and do something else, but a conversation with someone is a little different. I also have a hard time expressing how I feel when talking, so as I type, I get a chance to think about how to word things and how to get across what I'm really trying to. It's like my therapy right now. So just bear with me and I'm sure I'll get back to some happier thoughts soon (or maybe not too soon, but in time).