She Wore Shoes Today

Yes, at almost 6 weeks, Anna wore her first pair of shoes courtesy of Aunt Jana and gang. Here are a few photos from today. She is almost 6 weeks old. Anna and I are leaving tomorrow for East TN and daddy is very sad that we will be gone for 4 days!

She looks like her daddy...

Except for the ears and dimples that she got from mommy :) Jeff's mom came to visit at the last week and brought these photos (and many more) of Jeff when he was a baby. These confirm the myth that Anna indeed does favor her daddy. As Bethany says, Anna is Jeff with a pink bib.

He is Risen!

Yesterday was Easter Sunday...Anna's first. Although she is small, we still shared with her why we celebrate Easter...our Saviour is risen! We hope each of you celebrated this joyous day with friends and family. We are blessed.

Our first family photo.
We celebrated with our friends at Hope Fellowship with lunch at the Burton's house. Here is Anna with her new friends, Betsy and Luke. Luke was born in January and Betsy was born Feb 1st. Anna has another friend that will be arriving in a few weeks!
The kids hunted eggs and then posed for a picture with all their goodies.
Our sweet baby girl.

One Month - March 18th

We can not believe our sweet baby girl is a month old! She is growing and changing every day. She is very attentive. She loves to be kissed and cuddled. She loves for her daddy to sing to her. She loves for her daddy to rock her to sleep.

Jeff was on spring break last week. We took Anna to the park and took pictures. Here are few. We didn't time it very well. Once she opened her eyes, she was ready to eat.

Three Weeks

I tried to post these at the beginning of the week but has "server" problems. So, here is our sweet love at three weeks.

Mommy and Anna
Daddy imitating Anna. Can you see the resemblance?

Cousin Hannah, Aunt Dena and Uncle Marvin came to visit last week. Although Anna favors her daddy, she also looks a little like her cousin.

Two Weeks

Anna went to the doctor this week. She is now 7 lbs 1 oz...back to birth weight! Nana went home last Saturday. Mommy and daddy are tired but loving having her around.

She asked for the remote this morning...

Apparently she's a fan of the Today Show. This is the back of her head as she propped up with the remote.

Still me...

As in, not Debra. Debra is so much better at this than I am, but I wanted to go ahead and throw some things out for you all to see while she is getting back to her normal computer-addict self.

Here are some pics from the trip home from the hospital. Debra kept going on and on about how hot this guy in sunglasses was so we took his picture for her. And we are SO thankful that Barbara (Debra's mom) is here making this much easier than it would be otherwise.

By the way, please check out Jenny Pruitt's sweet words about Anna at www.jennypruitt.freeblogit.com.

Well, at least we have until Friday.

I have to admit that I have never even navigated to a blog site. Debra on the other hand LOVES to read blogs. But you will see from the above pictures that our lives have forever changed…as of Monday, February 18th at 8:34am. That's when Anna Rose Myrick arrived.

Praise God for the fact that there were no problems during delivery and it went fast and smooth. She's absolutely beautiful.

On Sunday night, all was normal. We were getting ready for the next day, on which Debra was scheduled to have a doctor's appointment. During this appointment, she was planning to discuss scheduling an induction for Friday, February 22nd (the actual due date). Around 10pm, Debra started having some cramping. When we realized that the cramping was stopping and starting, we decided to start timing. Sure enough, they were contractions... around 5 minutes apart lasting about 60 seconds each. After a call to the on-call doctor and a few more minutes of timing, we started throwing stuff together.

At this point, Debra was doubling over in nauseous pain with each one. I'm so thankful for her organization because most everything we needed was laid out on the guest bed with a list. We had prepared for this moment....kind of. So at about 11:30pm, we started throwing things in the car and headed toward Centennial Women's Hospital in Nashville. We got there about midnight (Sunday night).

Thanks to the VERY informative birthing class two weekends prior, we knew that admitting and assessment took place on the 8th floor. That's where we headed. We were told that Debra was at 3cm (up from the previous Monday's 1cm). Apparently that was enough progress to admit us!! Off to the 5th floor...also on the tour.

"So, do you plan to have an epidural?" Debra somehow managed to keep from saying "Hell, yes." She responded with a polite, but emphatic "Yes." That happened around 2am. The goal was for her to sleep while waiting on the centimeters to increase. Of course she didn't. I slept a little, but enough about me.

Around 4:30am, the Fultz clan arrived. Debra had called them on the way to the hospital just to say, "we're going in to get assessed. [contraction hit so she handed me the phone; I continued...] Hey, we're just going in to get assessed. I'll call you back in an hour or so to let you know more." Well, when I called them back around 1am or so, they were well on their way toward Nashville.

Debra was at 6cm by around 5am. She was fully dilated around 7-7:30am. She started pushing around 8am and after only about 4 rounds of pushing, Anna Rose showed up at 8:34am. Isn't that amazing?!

Debra is doing great and so is Anna. We are so very thankful. Thank you all for praying with us through this wonderful process.

June 23 Ellie's Run for Africa

I want to share something really cool that Jeff and I are doing to help Africa, and we want you to check it out too. We are doing that whole run-a-race thing to raise money. It is with Ellie's Run for Africa, a 5K run that will be held in Nashville on June 23. Here's the deal: The largest slum in East Africa is called Kibera, where 800,000 people live in an area just over a square mile. Not surprisingly, education is a huge problem. Children there have to have a uniform and their own schoolbooks in order to go to school. Since a lot of them can't afford that, Ellie's Run is putting those children in the Calvary Christian School by helping to pay for those necessary materials.

Here is where you come in – we are asking our friends and family to take on one child each. That's it. Put a child in school for $25. It will buy them the needed 8 school books, 2 uniforms, and pair of shoes they need. That gets it done for a year. Cool, huh?

These donations are made through a non-profit organization based in Franklin, TN, African Leadership (www.africanleadership.org). They train local African pastors and church leaders, and fund relief and development projects in their communities, like the Calvary Christian School. Ellie's Run, in its short two-year history, has helped raise the awareness of and funding for these children - and it has raised approximately $40,000 total. To date, at the Calvary school, funds from Ellie's Run have been used to build four classrooms, clothe children with needed uniforms and shoes and provide school supplies for 400 children. This annual race keeps that work going.

My trip to Africa 8 years ago changed my life. I saw what the children had to do in order to be educated because education is a privilege, not free, as in the US. Our dear friends, Barrett Ward and Rachel Duckworth, have been to Kibera, to the Calvary school, and met these children. They have given us a more personal responsibility to do something to help keep them in school. Please join us! Our goal is to raise enough money to sponsor 40 kids for next school year.

If you are interested in sponsoring a child (or more), do the following:
Make your $25 (per child) check payable to “African Leadership – ERFA”
Put “Debra and Jeff Myrick” in the memo line
Mail to: Run for Africa PO Box 150915 Nashville, TN 37215-0915

All donations are completely tax-deductible. We really appreciate your support! Also, if you'd like to run alongside us in Ellie's Run for Africa, you can sign up on the website at www.elliesrun.org.

Peace, love and Africa!

Barrett and Rachel in Kiberia

Rid Me of Myself

He is forever mine

Vacation 2007

Every year we go on a beach vacation with my family. We had a great time this year at Navarre Beach, FL. We had never been to Navarre Beach which is about 30 minutes west of Destin. The first 5 days were great because there was not a lot of people on the beach. More people arrived for the holiday weekend and we had fun people watching on the beach. What parents let their kids wear these day?!