Fionn's new trick!

He just started doing this tonight, by himself, without prompting...how stinkin' cute!! We play peek-a-boo with him, but we've never covered his head or anything!! He kept this up for a while with both Greg and I! He thinks he's funny, and he's right, he is!! What a great ending to the day!!

NOT a good day so far...

Hmmmm....it's been an interesting start to the day here at the Hites household....
It really started yesterday, and just carried over, but it will get better, it has to!
After my whopping two hour nap, I got Maggie up and Daddy left work a couple minutes early in order to drive her to school instead of me having to take Fionn out in the cold to the bus stop. Since I've not been feeling well off and on for the past month(I've just been exhausted) Greg called earlier this week and made me a Dr. Appt. Sooo off we went to that. I got my flu shot and the new doc decided to run some tests. I have been working hard the last few weeks to start losing this weight that I've put on, and nothing, not one pound has come off, so i've been a little exasperated about that. So the new doc and I went over available options for that as well, after all the lab work comes back.
So we came home, Fionn's had his six month visit yesterday with Rosemary(who comes from the Alliance for Children) He qualified for these checks because of his little stint in the NIC-U. So I rushed around and cleaned up. Thursday IS laundry day, so I started that. Greg and Fionn laid down. They slept until I woke up Fionn at 1PM for his visit...Greg kept sleeping. Maggie came home, Greg kept sleeping. We woke him up beacuse he had an appointment at school yesterday, and he was WHITE, i mean really WHITE...
He called on the way home from his meeting, he had to pull the truck over to get out and well....umm give back what he had eaten we'll say...
He was SUPPOSED to go to the game last night, yeah...not so much. He came home, crawled in bed, and didn't move until after 11am today, and only then because I made him.
So I got the kids ready for bed, put them in bed, and then I proceeded to pass out as well.

This morning, got up, took Maggie down to the bus. Came home, decided to check my email, and noticed my watch on the floor. Yesterday I took off my watch and rings and put them on my desk while doing the laundry. So as I picked up my watch, I noticed my engagement ring was missing...I started to panic. Ella, our little kitty, likes to take Maggie's play rings.
(I guess she missed the memo about kitty's moving out for touching my REAL rings...)
So I start moving things, then I look down...the laundry room/storage/mommy's office has wood floors...One panel of the wood floor had a knot in it, an open knot, just big enough for Mommy's ring to get through...I take a deep breath, and decide to look around before I rip up the floor. I start picking things up, looking under things, heading closer to the door...There is a heater grate by the door that goes ALL the way down to the basement into the furnace. (The cat has already taken Maggie's angel pin from school and knocked it down the one in our room!) So i look down the grate. And there on the side, what do I see...MY RING!!

STUPID, STUPID CAT

(who is very stupidly rubbing against my legs right now)
Okay, I try to calm down, I did leave them here, and she is just a kitty who loves to play...She was smart and hid for a few hours. So then as the boys napped some more this morning, I did some cleaning out in the kids room that I had to do. I don't know how one boy can grow so fast! He had his six month check up Weds. and is up to 17 pounds 5 oz. already. And he's over 26 inches long already! His feet, ugh, just like his sister, only growing FASTER than hers did! He's already in a 3 and they are getting small! We just had to go buy him 6-12 month socks, all his baby ones are too small already!
So, as I'm cleaning and putting away laundry, the doctor calls. Mono test is negative, thyroid test is negative, all other tests are negative. EXCEPT my Sugar test, which is high. I want to curse now. I have to go back Monday and do a fasting test, and even if it's borderline I have to start treatment. She reminded me that because of my Gestational Diabetes, my chances double for having diabetes now. So now I am trying to process. I am trying to figure out where we go from here. I know something's wrong, it has been for months, I was just really hoping this wasn't the problem. Right after I had Fionn my numbers looked good. Then I just stopped checking, the doctors didn't seem concerned, so we just let it go. I guess I should have pushed. I just didn't want to.
Tonight is light up night, we've gone every year since we moved here. There is a big Santa spectacular as he goes around downtown and lights up the city. There are even TWO firework shows. The ice skating rink opens, and it's official start to the Holiday season...
BUT it's too cold to take Fionn, and Greg really does have the stomach flu. Maggie is going to be so disappointed. She just realized the other day that we missed the circus and cried. It's been a rough year for her. This is all she's talked about all week. Poor girl. So that's where we stand. What a Friday! We're praying it gets better!!

Caught Up!!

Finally, after my two hour nap this morning I will catch everyone up on life here at the Hites household!! Lots has happened in the last week, I've just not had time to even think about telling you for the last week. I had sittings to edit like you would NOT believe, it just became a time crunch and I fell behind. Three sittings in one weekend is a little too much for me to handle I guess at once! Lesson learned!! Well...at least handle in a timely fashion!
Okay going to enjoy my nap!! More soon!!!

I found this article that I wanted to share...

I found this interview today and I thought it was a very interesting read. I like the points he makes in this interview, his comparisons to train tracks instead of mountains and valleys! Just wanted to share with all of you.
*Rick Warren **(REMEMBER HE WROTE 'PURPOSE DRIVEN LIFE')*
*You will enjoy the new insights that Rick Warren has, with his wife now
having cancer and him having 'wealth' from the book sales.
This is an
absolutely incredible short interview with Rick Warren, 'Purpose Driven
Life ' author and pastor of Saddleback Church in California*
*In the interview by Paul Bradshaw with Rick Warren, Rick said:*
------------------------------
**
*People ask me, What is the purpose of life? And I respond: In a nutshell,
life is preparation for eternity.
We were not made to last forever, and
God wants us to be with Him in Heaven.
*
*One day my heart is going to stop, and that will be the end of my body--
but not the end of me.
*
*I may live 60 to 100 years on earth, but I am going to spend trillions of
years in eternity. This is the warm-up act - the dress rehearsal.
God
wants us to practice on earth what we will do forever in eternity.
*
*We were made by God and for God, and until you figure that out, life isn't
going to make sense.
*
*Life is a series of problems: Either you are in one now, you're just
coming out of one, or you're getting ready to go into another one.
*
*The reason for this is that God is more interested in your character than
your comfort.
*
*God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your
life happy.
*
*We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that's not the goal of life.

The goal is to grow in character, in Christ likeness.
*
*This past year has been the greatest year of my life but also the
toughest, with my wife, Kay, getting cancer.
*

*I used to think that life was hills and valleys - you go through a dark
time, then you go to the mountaintop, back and forth.
I don't believe that
anymore.
*
*Rather than life being hills and valleys, I believe that it's kind of like
two rails on a railroad track, and at all times you have something good
and something bad in your life.
*
*No matter how good things are in your life, there is always something bad
that needs to be worked on.
*
*And no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always something
good you can thank God for.
*
*You can focus on your purposes, or you can focus on your problems.
*
*If you focus on your problems, you're going into self-centeredness,'which
is my problem, my issues, my pain.
' But one of the easiest ways to get rid
of pain is to get your focus off yourself and onto God and others.
*

*We discovered quickly that in spite of the prayers of hundreds of

thousands of people, God was not going to heal Kay or make it easy for her.*

*It has been very difficult for her, and yet God has strengthened her
character, given her a ministry of helping other people, given her a
testimony, drawn her closer to Him and to people.
*
*You have to learn to deal with both the good and the bad of life.
*
*Actually, sometimes learning to deal with the good is harder.
For
instance, this past year, all of a sudden, when the book sold 15 million
copies, it made me instantly very wealthy.
*
*It also brought a lot of notoriety that I had never had to deal with
before.
I don't think God gives you money or notoriety for your own ego or
for you to live a life of ease.
*
*So I began to ask God what He wanted me to do with this money, notoriety
and influence.
He gave me two different passages that helped me decide
what to do, II Corinthians 9 and Psalm 72*
*First, in spite of all the money coming in, we would not change our
lifestyle one bit. We made no major purchases.
*
*Second, about midway through last year, I stopped taking a salary from the
church.
*
*Third, we set up foundations to fund an initiative we call The Peace Plan
to plant churches, equip leaders, assist the poor, care for the sick, and
educate the next generation.
*
*Fourth, I added up all that the church had paid me in the 24 years since I
started the church, and I gave it all back.
It was liberating to be able
to serve God for free.
*
*We need to ask ourselves: Am I going to live for possessions? Popularity?*
*Am I going to be driven by pressures? Guilt? Bitterness? Materialism? Or
am I going to be driven by God's purposes (for my life)?*
*When I get up in the morning, I sit on the side of my bed and say, God, if
I don't get anything else done today, I want to know You more and love You
better. God didn't put me on earth just to fulfill a to-do list.
He's more
interested in what I am than what I do.
*
*That's why we're called human beings, not human doings.
*

*Happy moments, PRAISE GOD.
*
*Difficult moments, SEEK GOD.
*
*Quiet moments, WORSHIP GOD.
*
*Painful moments, TRUST GOD.
*
*Every moment, THANK GOD.
*

Sooo excited, just have to share!!

For all of you not following Kristy's blog, GO NOW and read!!! God is working again with the Bolte's and I am sooo excited!! This is all good, happy news and I want to tell everyone!!! So go, now, and read!!!
The Bolte Blog

Prayers Needed

Hey everyone,
I have a mom that could use your prayers, support and encouragement. She is someone who contacted me about her little boy Caleb, who is due on the 26th of the this month. She just found out last month that Caleb has Trisomy 18. I know, not the normal time frame for finding out your baby has T-18, but none the less, it's how it has happened. Lindsey is a single mom who is struggling with this diagnosis. I know you all have a wonderful web(pardon the pun)spun where you are connected here through your blogs, and she could really use the hope and encouragement through this journey. Here is a link to her blog She has just started blogging, and I'm praying that she sees that God is leading her on this journey for good, not just taking her baby away. She is hoping to become a voice for Trisomy 18 awareness, and God is already opening doors here locally for her to share Caleb's story! PLEASE keep Lindsey and her family in your prayers!
Thank you, to all of you, for the way you care for each other. It is truly something amazing to see from my perspective!
-Ginger

Big Sale, today only at FOI!

To take advantage of this sale, just go here and then click on Regular Holiday Session-first payment: $100.00. That's it. All done. Now let's come up with a date and time!!
Remember, this is for TODAY only!! And there are only a FEW at this price! If you have any questions, please call Ginger at 412-715-5294

Busy, busy week...

Forgive me everyone if I don't get to post much more than this for this week, but I am SWAMPED! I have three sessions to edit before this weekend, pictures to get in the mail, and company coming this weekend, and we've yet to unpack from this past weekend!
It was a great weekend home though, even though I was exhausted. I should have known that I was coming down with something. I guess it's just lack of sleep toppled on top of stress, but it seems like I've caught every bug all my carrier monkeys have brought through this house in the last six weeks. They never seem to last more than a few days, but that's enough to back me up with work. And right now, with Maggie home the last two days, and Fionn SCREAMING at me most of the day, that's where we are.
Maggie already has a new big girl tooth popping up through her gums, but poor Fionn, they are just sitting there under the skin. My poor baby has been miserable. It wasn't like this with Maggie, it was pretty much how it is now, just a lot of drool, and pop! a tooth...He won't let me console him, he just wants to scream it out. We're trying our best to distract him, and we succeed most of the time, but when he gets tired, well...game over!
So if you could, PLEASE keep our little guy in your prayers. We're just simply praying to ease his pain a bit, and if those teeth could hurry it up, well that would be nice too!! The screaming does NOT help anyone, and I really need a happy boy who is happy to play for a while so I can get some work done!!
I hope everyone has a great week, and sorry to hear about all the snow in Erie County, so far just a dusting here! Looks like we headed back to the burgh just in time Sunday!!

Fionn's on the web!!

when Fionn was born, I bought him this great outfit from a company called L'OVED Baby. I got him a shirt, pants and hat. They were made out of the softest cotton, and he seemed so comfy in them. It was our intention to wear that outfit home from the hospital, but while we were in the NICU he wore the shirt there instead. They were having problems getting a little t-shirt style shirt on him with all of his wiring, so I pulled mine out that was a side snap one so it easily fit over everything. This shirt and hat were the first thing Fionn wore in the hospital and the hat became a staple of the stay. He loved it. I was just online this week, looking to buy him more from this company, and remmebered that they have a photo gallery that you can send them pictures of your baby wearing their stuff. I sent a pic from the NICU of Fionn and wrote a little note with it. Well they published it! L'OVED BABY Fionn is all the way at the bottom, AND they published a bit of his story too! I do also have to tell you this is a pic from the NICU that I never posted, but it's a cute one!
Okay, time for the little man to eat breakfast. He tried his first green beans last night, and he actually ate, well...most of them! We hope everyone has a great weekend, it looks like rain, BOO!! At least we're headed home this weekend. Lots of fun things planned!

Our Big Boy!

Well it's been quite a 24 hours, big things happened. I already posted how I feel about what happened nationally, so I'll catch you all up on what happened here.
We had family pictures last night, well tried to anyway...I had it set up with another local photographer that I know that she would come take ours, and then I would go and take their family shots. Which I thought would be great. I'm never in front of the camera, never. I was soooo excited to finally have a family picture with all four of us in it, I can't even put it in words. We only have a few snapshots of all four of us together. Well we could not start shooting until 4, as that's when the other photog could get there. We were a few minutes late getting started as there was traffic EVERYWHERE headed down to South Park. The sun was already starting to set and we were losing light so we had to move fast. Fionn did great, cooperated for most of the shots, smiled, had a great time. MAGGIE, on the other hand decided that she would face the camera, smile(sometimes) but look somewhere else in almost EVERY picture...I'm not kidding, there are FIFTEEN shots of the same pose, and I love the pose, and in not ONE picture did that child look at the stinkin camera.
I was so disappointed when I came home and saw the pictures. I'm going to try to salvage a few, and I was so happy the other photog could come, but it just didn't turn out. I was seriously bummed today and havn't even gone back to look at them again. I haven't even showed Greg yet.
This morning after we took Maggie to school, we took Fionn out to the Doctors. He's up to a whopping 17 pounds now! He had to go today for the first of many shots this winter. Since Fionn was intubated while in the NICU and since his lungs were immature, he qualified for Synagis, which is a monthly dose to protect him from RSV. He has to have this shot every month for the entire flu season, and still has to have a flu shot on top of this. It's a big IM shot(in both legs) as well, and they said it burns, so please keep our little guy in your prayers. In the next month alone he has to have his 6 month shots, a flu shot, and then another dose of Synagis. Something tells me he's going to be more than a little grumpy. I felt so bad this morning because he was so happy and laughing at the dr.'s office before the shots. Afterwards he just screamed and screamed!! My poor baby!
Maggie wanted to share with you a couple pictures that Mommy took of her and Fionn last night after the other photographer left. So here's what I got, too bad the light was fading fast!!

our babies, in the leaves

The boys, don't they look thrilled

Daddy helping Fionn walk across the bridge

A NEW PRESIDENT

I have been hesitant on writing anything political on our blog, and I can tell you three months ago we were NOT so sure who we would be voting for today, it all seemed like BS, but I can tell you that once we made the effort to sit down and look at all the facts we did, indeed decide to back Obama. Today we went, as a family, and cast our votes. Maggie went with both of us and helped us push the buttons. She had no doubt in her mind who would win. The reason though she did not like John McCain(kids say the darnedest things) was that she didn't like his smile! It was that easy for her. Not so much for Greg and I. I like John McCain, I stand for some of the same things he stands for. His Pro-life campaign was something that I admired, but at this time, he wasn't the right choice for us. I have to hope that as a nation we can now make our voices heard that we want change. I believe we are on the right path. Who among us tonight, who listened to his speech from Grant Park, isn't moved? I had tears in my eyes tonight as I listened, and hope in my heart. For the first time, I feel like I was a part of History. What an amazing night for our country! Even if you didn't vote for Obama today, let's all help make our voices heard again in our capitol. Let's take back the government this IS of the people, BY the people!
I just went in and woke up Maggie to tell her the results, and do you know my five year old daughter(half asleep) sat up in bed and gave me the biggest smile and biggest hug. She doesn't understand the importance of the day, but at FIVE she knows more about the world than I did at that age. She amazes me, and I hope that our next President amazes all of us...
God Bless America!