HAPPY DEVELOPMENTS!!!

In an earlier post, I had mentioned that Thomas and I were struggling with some job decisions that needed to be made and that, at that time, I didn't really want to go into anything. However, one major development has occurred!! Thomas applied for a job with the City of Canyon about a month ago with the Parks Department. He interviewed and it went REALLY well. However, the day of Nancy's funeral, the City Manager called Thomas and told him that he was number 2 in the runnings and the number 1 guy accepted the position. It was a really hard blow for us to take! We had a lot of allies at the City who were putting in "good words" for Thomas and we were discouraged. I cried for a couple of minutes, and then, it was like a lightbulb went off in my head. Why was I crying over a job that God didn't want Thomas to have? Apparently, there is something better out there that God just wants us to patient for, right? Well, last Monday, Thomas called me at 10:00am and said that the City of Canyon had just called him. The number 1 guy didn't work out and they wanted to interview Thomas again. He interviewed at 11:00 and at 4:00, while we had Malachi at the Dr., they called and offered him the job!!! We were SO excited. You see, for any further developments with MY job situation to take place, Thomas would HAVE to get a job with full benefits making a certain amount of money. Well, we prayed for that certain amount of money, and God gave it to us, PLUS a little extra!! Thomas has his own truck, a cell phone, uniforms (Yea - No more buying clothes just so they can get ruined,) and his hours are from 7:30-4:30 AND FULL BENEFITS that are CHEAPER than they are at my work!!! With his hours the way they are he can help me get Malachi ready in the morning, and he can pick him up in the evenings before I get off of work. He has even been going to see Malachi at lunch! I am SO proud of him!

He's over Southeast Park in Canyon, including the baseball complex. He's learning a lot about the maintenance of baseball fields and he's SO excited for the new challenge!! So, God has done a LOT for us the last week!! (As if He's not ALWAYS doing a LOT for us!!) Now, we are praying fervently that God will allow ME the opportunities that I desire. All I can say is that after having Malachi ALL of my priorities changed. My needs, my desires and my wants have all changed and they all now revolve around my incredible little boy and husband! No longer do I care about my career, my reputation or establishing my name. I care about my family FIRST and spending every moment with my little man and my main man that I can!! So, please be praying with us that God will continue to bless us and will allow our dreams to continue to come true, as they have for the last 10 years of our life together!!

Congratulate Thomas if and when you talk to him or see him! He deserves it!

On another front, Malachi is sleeping VERY well lately which we are really excited about! I'm actually getting used to it now, instead of checking on him every hour!! But, I hear that's pretty normal the first few times your baby sleeps through the night! Every night when we go to bed, Thomas and I snuggle up and Thomas prays thanking God for our precious baby and asking for His protection over Malachi. There's just something about that acknowledgement of God's gift and prayer for His continued blessings towards Malachi that helps me to sleep at night! I can't wait to teach Malachi how to pray like that! I want him to learn EARLY how to listen for God's voice and direction! The earlier he learns, the better!!

We also took him to the Dr. yesterday for his 4 month checkup. I KNOW!!! Can you believe it's already been 4 months? He is officially an "Average size" baby!! He's 26 inches long and weighs 14 pounds even!! That means that in 4 months, he's gained over 8 pounds and grown 7 1/4 inches! The Dr. is completely thrilled! His little growth chart looks like a line, instead of a curve! He said everything looks great and that we've got a wonderful little boy on our hands! (As if we didn't know that already!)

He has also started talking, A LOT lately. It's like overnight he found his hands and his voice. The only time he's not talking, if he's awake, is when he's sucking on his hands! But, it's great!!

PICTURE TIME!!!

Malachi's first Live Band!!

Guns Up!

Playing with Dad!

BATH TIME!!

A Cute Little Face

Hey - Don't Be Showing My Goods on the Blog!


MMM...This Towel is Warm Mom!

Cuddling with My Lolli!

It WASN'T just a fluke!!!

Okay - Two nights in a row!! We're getting spoiled here!

An Historic Moment!!

Last night was another of what are sure to be MANY MORE historic moments in the early life of Malachi Allen. Yes, that's right, he....SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT!!! Yesterday was a rough day. He was in his seat a lot...Then he would be taken out, eat, burped, loved on, put back in etc. Then we went to my parent's house and he just never really got a good nap. So, last night, he ate at about 6:30pm. He stayed awake for a while, slept for about an hour and then we got home at about 8:45. He immediately went to sleep - HARD sleep - and we knew he would probably want to eat again around 10:30. So, we went to sleep, fully expecting to be woken up soon by a crying baby telling us his little tummy was empty. At almost 1:00am, I woke up and asked Thomas what time it was. When he said 1:00, I jumped up and checked on Malachi, only to find him sleeping IN THE EXACT SAME POSITION as when I put him down. It actually took me a few minutes to listen and make sure he was breathing. The rest of the night was full of tossing and turning anticipating a scream at any moment. I got up at 2:15, 3:30, 4:30 and finally at 5:30. I went to check on him one last time at 5:30 and he was moving around quite a bit, so I asked Thomas to go pick him up. He ate his bottle (eyes closed pretty much the whole time) and was back asleep by 6:00am. So, mommy and daddy crawled back in bed and didn't get up until 6:45 - ONLY because we had to for work!!

So, even though it was incredibly restful for Malachi, Mommy and Daddy tossed and turned all night. But, I guess that's how it goes the first few times they sleep all night!! Hopefully it wasn't just a fluke, but, I'd be willing to bet that it was!!

"Heaven just got a lot Funner!!"

NANCY KAY CAMP
1944-2008

Last Friday was probably one of the most difficult days I've had in a very long time. Friday morning, I had a meeting scheduled for 9:30 at Lake Tanglewood to discuss some "issues" that are going on out there. So, I decided it would be better to work from home, then leave from my house and head straight to Tanglewood. (instead of going all the way into downtown Amarillo, turning around and driving back to Tanglewood, then turning around and driving back to downtown Amarillo) ANYWAY, I had been up working since about 6:30am because I had so much on my mind and I just wanted to get started. Around 7:00, I got a frantic phone call from my mom that Nancy had been put on life support the night before, they didn't think she had any neurological function and she would probably be taken off life support a little later in the day. Of course, this sent me into a panic.

Nancy, for those of you who don't know, owned my mom's daycare, Playhouse, for 26 years and her mother owned it before then. My mom came to work at Playhouse when I was barely 5 years old as the Assistant Director. She married my dad while working there, she had my little brother while working there, and, of course, she bought it in June 2003 and now MY son goes there!! (Even though most of the time he's with Lolli in her office!!) My mom and Nancy became best friends almost immediately upon my mom's hire and remained that way up until Nancy's passing. This, of course, also means that Nancy's daughters and I grew up together. Donna and I are particularly close out of the three!!

Nancy was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease, a horrible, mean, awful, unfair disease, probably 6 or maybe even 7 years ago and, as Parkinson's goes, she was progressively getting worse. In May, she made the difficult but VERY BRAVE decision to have a series of 4 brain surgeries which would implant electrodes into her brain (kind of like a pacemaker) which would send electric signals each time her brain started to mis-fire. This was all in hopes that she would have a much better quality of life without tremors, etc. (Okay...I'm not in the medical profession, this is just my limited understanding) Anyway, during the 3rd surgery, the surgeons knicked a blood vessel and Nancy suffered a stroke. After a long battle in ICU, she was moved to the Craig Nursing Home here in Amarillo. However, she then got sick and was put in the hospital and lost her spot. After her stay in the hospital, she was moved to the Arbors, with a beautiful private room and began her recovery once again. She was at the Arbors up until last Wednesday or Thursday when she suddenly got very sick. We all thought she just had the same "tummy bug" that had been going around like crazy around here, so no one thought too much of it. Then, they found out she had a white blood cell count of over 50,000 and that she had a very contagious illness and she was quarantined. My mom was able to go spend about 3 hours with her on Thursday and when she left Nancy, she told her she loved her and Nancy told her she loved her too! Unfortunately, this was the last time my mom saw Nancy coherent. Thursday night, Nancy's colon ruptured. The doctors thought maybe she could go into surgery, but ultimately stated that if she was put under, she would never come back out.

Friday morning, with the family gathered around, (Daughter Lisa and her husband, Mark, Daughter Donna and her husband Steve, My mom and Dad, and Lou, Nancy's sweet husband - Thomas and I were in the waiting room since only 4 people were allowed in the room and there were ALREADY more than that in the room) the doctors took Nancy off of Life support. She had no neurological function, no blood pressure and the doctors could not find a pulse. She continued to breathe until her daughter, Susan, from an airplain headed to Amarillo, told her she loved her and it was okay to go. They then put her son, Todd, who was on his way from Lubbock on the phone with Nancy and he said his goodbyes. The family sang "In the Garden" which was Nancy's favorite song, she took 2 more breaths and went to be with Jesus.

The difficult part about all of this isn't necessarily that Nancy is now gone, it's that she was doing SO VERY WELL, until Thursday. Her therapy was going well, she was progressing, her speech was GREAT, and her mind was still like a STEEL TRAP!!! She was cracking jokes up until the very end. I've known Nancy, as I stated, since I was a little girl, and she was my grandmother for all intensive purposes. I can't believe she's gone.

The funeral was awesome. I bet there were at least 200+ people there. Most of which were daycare families from years past. We got phone calls at my mom and dad's house all night Saturday night from former daycare kids who are in college now, but wanted to call and talk to us!! The flowers were incredible! I've never seen so many beautiful arrangements in one place!!

One of the hardest parts for my mom is that she has lost her very best friend. Even her family feels that way. Nancy was a Christian, so we KNOW that she is now with Jesus and Grandma Elliott and our sweet baby!! I know she's loving him/her until we get there to be with everyone some wonderful day!!! She's singing "Alump went the Little Green Frog" and "Whaddalyacha" and all of her other fun songs!! She's playing with George, enjoying his new-found freedom from down-syndrome, she's looking down and telling all of us that yes, "This too shall pass."

Nancy,

I will miss you. Thank you for being my mom's best friend. Thank you for loving me and Logan SO much. Thank you for "making ice cream" and "Witchiepoo" and "Witch's Brew" and my first ever 12 speed bike. Thank you for the Playhouse and allowing us to be the guardians all this time over your business. Thank you for now entrusting that into my mom's care. I know, as you ALWAYS knew, that there is NO ONE better for the task than her. Thank you for your laughs (your old laugh and your new one.) Thank you for funny pictures of you sticking out your tongue. Thank you for your daughters, especially my friend Donna!! Thank you for the basement when the weather was bad, and the 1000s of movies we could always borrow. Thank you for introducing me to Gidget. I'll thank you for the new "Donut" recipe that Donna just told me about! (I can't wait to try that!! yum) Thank you for loving Malachi as much as you did...and no, your shaking didn't give him "Shaken Baby" as you joked!! If anything, he loved it when you held him because you mimicked his bouncy seat!! haha (For those of you who didn't know Nancy, this was her sense of humor...there's no disrespect in these jokes!!) Thank you for teaching me and most of the kids in my generation that there ARE consequences to your actions, either good or bad. It's your choice! Thank you for letting me have the key to the old coke machine. Thank you for hiring my mom and supporting her!! Thank you for being her friend and loving her as much as you did. I promise I will be there for her, as you were, and that I will be there for your sweet baby girl, Donna. She and I will always have something in common, as we both grew up having to share our moms with others. KNOW that there is no one in this world I would rather share my mom with now!!!

There will NEVER be another Nancy Kay Camp.

Thank you for that!

VERY rough week.

I will update as soon as I can. The Allen/Brown/Camp family lost a dear friend/Grandmother/Mother on Friday when Nancy Camp passed away. I will post more when I get a chance, just please pray for us right now. We're all having a REALLY difficult time with this one.

I have an AWESOME daddy!!

University Announces Award Winners

CANYON, Texas—Four West Texas A&M employees were honored with some of the University’s highest awards during the annual Faculty/Staff Convocation Aug. 18 at Mary Moody Northen Recital Hall.

Traditionally, award presentations at the Faculty/Staff Convocation have been reserved to three coveted staff awards—the Clarence E. Thompson Staff Excellence Award and two Staff Excellence Awards—but this year University officials also presented the University’s first-ever Magister Optimus Award for faculty.

Dr. J. Patrick O’Brien, University president, and Jack Schiller, president of the WTAMU Staff Council, presented the three staff awards. Randy Brown, supervisor in Central Supply, received WTAMU’s highest staff honor as the 2008 recipient of the Clarence E. Thompson Staff Excellence Award. Brown, who joined the WTAMU staff in 2000, maintains the University’s Central Supply and coordinates numerous campus moves.

Dr. Jessica Mallard, right, received the University's first-everMagister Optimus Award. The award was presented to her by Dr. James Hallmark, left, and Dr. Robert Hansen, center.
“Randy is one of the “unsung heroes” whose work goes on behind the scenes to help make every event on campus successful,” O’Brien said.

Daddy,

How does a little girl thank the man that taught her how to ride a bike, didn't laugh (too hard) at her when she crimped her hair and dressed up in her "barbie" outfit, took her trick-or-treating and to the school fair as Frankenstein and Frankenstein's daughter, sat in a baby pool in the back yard so she didn't have to swim alone, put together her Barbie house and Barbie car, even though she ruined the surprise by walking in your room without knocking...haha? How does a little girl thank her dad for loving her and her mom, even though a lot of men would've run the other way? How does a little girl thank her daddy for bubble mowing, and snowman building and kite flying? How does a little girl thank her daddy for giving her the best little brother she could have and the best vacations as a family? How does a little girl thank her daddy for teaching her what a good man is and that she deserves NOTHING but the best? How does a little girl thank her daddy for being the best "Pops" a grandchild could ever ask for? How does a little girl thank her daddy for Nikes and mobiles, and diapers and wipes and loving her baby SO MUCH? The only way that I can think of to thank you for your love is to tell you, and show you, and teach her children what a great Pops they have!! To teach them to follow your example and be just like you! Dad, I have seen Christ in you, and I thank you so much for that example! I am so proud of you and your award, but I am MORE proud to say, that's MY daddy up there!!

I love you more than these words could possibly express!!

Love,

Daddy's Little Girl