she's finally here!

My niece, Cora Beth McAfee, made her way into this world Friday, July 25, at 2:36am. She weighed 6 lbs. 5 oz. and was 20 1/4 inches long. She brought with her the most delicate features and the sweetest face you've ever seen... she is the first child of my brother & his wife, the first grandchild to my mom & dad. And she has stolen every last one of our hearts!

Here's the story in a "nutshell":

Brandi's water broke around 5pm Thursday evening, July 24. Daniel called me shortly after that and we were able to get on the road to Thomasville around 8:30pm. We got to the Thomasville Medical Center about 12:20am. Longest drive of my life!

Brandi was such a trooper, going through about 8 hours of labor before her doctor decided that it would be best to perform a c-section due to the baby's dropping heartrate during Brandi's contractions. She wasn't dialating very quickly and the doctor didn't want to take any chances. What was so neat is that he wanted to pray with Brandi (and the family) before he took her into surgery. Praise God for Christian doctors!

So as they prepped Brandi for surgery, we all headed down to the waiting room to pray & wait for the miracle that was taking place just down the hall. About an hour later, the proud Daddy, my brother, Daniel, came to tell us we could come see Cora Beth in the nursery. It was there that we all instantly fell in love with her...and my level of pride in my brother shot up. I was so proud of both him & Brandi -- they made this child-birthing thing look so easy...Daniel was just as "cool as a cucumber" every time I saw him...just going with the flow of things, doing what needed to be done. Huh.

We came back to the hospital later that day (Friday) and the next, each time falling deeper in love with that precious baby girl. Daniel & Brandi had lots of family come to visit during that time and each of them were just in wonder of little Cora Beth. We all begrudgingly took turns holding her; no one willingly let her go -- you had to ASK! :) Sunday, they released them all to go home around lunchtime and we headed over to their house after church. We hung out there until it was time for Jeff and I to head back to the coast. I gotta tell ya, that was pretty tough to do!

Cora Beth has already claimed a big place in my heart -- I.am.in.love.with.this.child. And counting the days until I can see her again...

attic shelves...

We got another home project done this morning. We've been wanting to put some sort of shelving up in the attic to organize our "junk" somewhat -- nothing really fancy; just something to get the stuff up off the floor so we can actually move around up there.

We've been just throwing stuff up there and gradually decreasing our floor space. We have things like fall/Christmas decorations up there; suitcases, coolers, golf clubs, Jeff's airplane hobby stuff, etc...lots of miscellaneous stuff. Thank goodness Jeff enlisted Henry to help put down flooring up there so we could actually use a little of the storage we have up there! Now we're trying to put some kind of order in place...

It's really hard to see in the photo, but the shelving sits in between the trusses and goes almost the length of the area up there. This should work pretty well.

"makeshift" craft room...

I am really loathed to show you guys my "makeshift" craft room at this point...this has been the bane of my existence since we moved in. I understand everyone usually has a "catchall" room when they first move in -- a room they throw all the "boxes we don't know what to do with yet", all the "items we don't have a place for yet". Well, this room most definitely qualifies as that room. I'm always extremely embarassed to show this room on "the tour" when anyone comes to see the house for the first time, and usually everyone understands and doesn't care at all (they'll usually tell me all about their "catchall" room at that point), but still. If you know me, you know I care. :)

Recently I've been thinking that I might not get so frustrated with how things are right now in there if I could find a way to rearrange some things and maybe even fit another table in there somehow. I figured that might make me a little more productive (with my crafts) in the process, too. Couldn't hurt, right?

So I got to rearranging this morning. And cleaning out. Surprisingly, I like to clean out. It's a time to find old stuff and to reminisce...and then to be brutally honest with yourself -- how long has it been since you've even seen this thing? And when would you ever use it again, if you've gone this long without it? Yeah. Had to be pretty honest with myself at times...

But I was able to consolidate some things and move some things around and I think I'm going to like this setup. For awhile, at least. Until my wonderful, woodworking husband comes through with my own set of cabinets (like his in the shop) for this room! Until then, I'll try to be content with this... :)

**Note: Make sure you go back & look at the before photo...what a difference!

a nice day off...

Happy (belated) 4th of July! I was so busy enjoying my day off yesterday, I didn't have a chance to blog. But I did think about it and planned on blogging today since I know it has been a ridiculous amount of time since I blogged last. My day yesterday was filled with a variety of things -- some I wanted to do, some just needed to be done.

One thing I wanted to do:
I did some scrapbooking yesterday and got a little bit farther in the house album. Truth be told, I only have about 4 or 5 more days left to scrapbook before the album is complete. In this post, I mentioned that I would probably continue the album, even after the house had been built and we had moved in, but I have since changed my mind. There are other things to scrapbook now (not the least of which is my CRUISE!) and I just need to cut the house album off somewhere so I can move on. So I've decided that "moving day" will be my last page(s) in that album. That's a good place to end it, right?

One thing I wanted/needed to do:
I got another box unpacked (that's a big deal). It was a box of mostly magazines (Jeff's & mine) and some cookbooks. I mostly use my Simple & Delicious magazines when I cook so I did get rid of some of the cookbooks I don't use (or have never used). Jeff had a lot of woodworking magazines as well as some Model Aviation magazines so we got those organized and into magazine racks, and now they're up in his new cabinet in his shop. A very practical place for them to be! :)

One thing that needed to be done:
Jeff and I mowed the lawn yesterday evening. This is my 2nd time helping with the yard and let me just tell you: you don't really think your yard is that big until you have to mow that joker! I did the mowing with the self-propelled (ha! that's a joke right there) mower and Jeff did the weed-eating. Man, that is a workout! But the wind was blowing (the grass all over me) and we didn't start cutting until around 6:30pm so it was pretty comfortable by then. It looks great, if I do say so myself! :)

We had a nice meal after that -- grilled pork chops with a new Carribean Jerk marinade (yum!), grilled asparagus (Jeff makes some mean grilled asparagus now...), steamed broccoli and some garlic pasta. A good end to our day off. At 9pm, Holly Ridge shot some fireworks from their park which is right down the road from the house so we were able to see most of them from our driveway. I took a few photos...