The worst reason for a reunion...

So, the Hollingsworths' have had another whirl-wind adventure. Mike's mom had another stroke last week, and is not recovering from it very well. So, we all piled into the cars Thursday night, and headed down to Albuquerque.

Now, you have to understand, this was going to be my first meeting of Mike's family. I mean Jake and I have only been married two years, but we probably could have made a trip a little sooner. The funny thing is that when we got all together that first night, you wouldn't have known that it had been such a long time since they had gotten together. We all settled in and started catching up on the latest weddings and babies, like we really hadn't missed a beat. There was a little talk about Grandma Gay, but I think most were trying to not think about it for a little while. Mike and Mark (mike's twin brother) even joked that it took their mom having another stroke to get them all back together.
I really had a fun time, considering the reason for the trip. I got to meet Jake's cousins Amanda, Laura, Sean. Amanda is happlily single at the moment. Laura is married to Ryan with their little boy EJ, and another baby on the way. Sean just got married this past summer to Graciella.
Now, there's a funny story that goes along with Laura and Ryan's son's first name, that I have to tell. They call their son EJ, which stands for Espen Jarome. I never would have gotten this if they had not explained it to me, but does the name Espen look familiar, especially to the sports fans out there? Let me help you out by high-lighting the letters of interrest : ESPeN. Ryan wanted to name their son ESPN, which Laura agreed to as long as he would put the "e" in to make it look more like a proper name. Jake thought of Tommy when Ryan told us the story.
I told Jake that he wasn't going to get away with anything like that with me, because Jake's favorite shows are on the DIY and HGTV channels.

Mike's mom is still in the hospital, stable but still not doing very well. We're keeping her in our prayers, but from what the doctors have said it might be just a matter of time. I know it's the worst reason for the family to get together, but it really ended up being a nice reunion for Mike and Mark, all considering.

I couldn't help myself...

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There are 60 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

Lizzi Pictures...

Lizzi has been having lots of fun. We built this fort for her to play with, but she didn't understand what to do with it at first. Luckily for me Jake didn't know where the camera was, because I got in there to show Lizzi how it works.

She has this fasination with her blankets (and anything like a blanket) where she'll wrap it around her sholders and flap her arms.


For those of you that didn't know, Lizzi is walking. I'm still trying to get the little video of her walking on here, but I'm having a hard time with it.


Just a few pics of Lizzi playing. She loves sitting in her boppy. On occasion, she'll curl up in it with her teddy bear.

Lizzi has two Ducky toys, one from each of her grandma's. This is the one that Denise gave her. She likes to walk around with one or the other cuddled under her neck.

Since I'm not working right now, I spend a lot of my day keeping up with the cleaning around the house. I think Lizzi has started to mimic some of my cleaning. In her right hand is one of her wipes and she is wiping down the couch. She has also tryed to help by throwing things away in the trash can. I have to keep a close eye on what is going in, because once she put in some of Denise's books.
She is growing so fast, and is learing so quickly. She's even started to use spoon, well sort of. She'll sometimes get the food on the spoon and into her mouth. Other times she will just fling the food across the room. She also likes to just hold the spoon while she eats with her hands. She's always has been such a wonderful little girl. We hope that the next one will have some of those qualities too.

I'm so proud of myself!!

So, I've spent probably the lest three months trying to get all of our stuff organized, and I'm finally done (well for now). I have finally succeeded in getting all of our boxes organized in our room. It took a lot of trips to DI and a lot of rearranging, but it's all in there. Now I just need to figure out, if we are going to be at Mike and Denise's until the baby comes, where to put her. But, I have three more months to figure out where her bed is going to go.

The trick now is trying to get Jake and his dad to finish cleaning off the back porch, so I can put a little pool out there for Lizzi to play in. I would clean it off myself, but I'm scared that a black-widow or a hobo spider will jump out and get me (I'm really really scared of spiders). I'm also hate lifting something up to find a family of cockroches under it.

Anyways, I'm hoping to get some of my craft projects started. I've been hoping for a free moment, but it's just hard to start something that I'm not sure if I'll be able to finish, in a reasonable ammount of time. Oh well, other than that, not much has happened for us. My days are basically filled with dishes, laundry, and running after Lizzi. We were able to go to Brody's and Hayden's blessings, they both looked so cute. I was really excited to get to together with some of the family we don't get to see as often. Hope everyone is doing well, and hope to be able to see all of you soon!