1st sleepover!

Tucker had a big boy sleepover last night! Our generous friends, the Gibbs, offered to take Tucker for the whole night so that we could have a night to ourselves as we celebrated our anniversary! It was so weird for him to stay somewhere else, especially in another "big bed"! But, besides with our parents, I can't think of anywhere else we'd rather him be for the night! Tucker LOVES these 4 boys and he's pretty fond of "Lissa" and "JD" as well :) He was all smiles when we met him at church this morning and full of stories of what he ate, what he played with, and other fun stuff he did! They said he did great...besides trying to get out of bed a few times, he slept great and was never scared or showing signs of missing us at all! It was very different to be in our house without him but such a GIFT, of course!

Thanks friends...we couldn't have asked for a better anniversary gift! We're so grateful that your house and your family has always been such a comfortable place for Tucker to go!

Happy Birthday "Tay-yer"!

Taylor, or Tay-yer, as Tucker affectionately calls him, had a birthday last week and he is a big 6 years old! It's just WILD that he is this old and everything about him is seeming like it from his hair darkening to the type of conversation we end up having. He is healthy, full of energy, and loving Kindergarten! Tucker is easily his biggest fan and didn't stop talking about his big buddy from the few hours before we went to pick him up for his birthday night until the moment his eyes shut last night! It was a great night with Taylor celebrating his birthday and I'm just so thankful to still be a part of this little guy's life!

We rode the rocket...

Got silly...

And bowled on the Wii...

We love you TAY-YER!

Happy Birthday Jason!

Last week, we celebrated Jason's 8th birthday with him! Since we were in potty training mode, we kept it simple for the birthday night with dinner here and some Wii time with Mr. Brad! Tucker was very intrigued by the nerf guns that were being used :) It is hard to believe that Jason was just 2 years old and potty training when I first starting working with the Gibbs! Time is flying by as I watch these boys get older! I love getting to still spend time with them! Tucker loves Jason and could hardly eat dinner, he was so excited to have him at our table :)

Happy Birthday Jason! We love you!

Finish Line Article in Today's Charlotte Observer!

This was a great article in the Charlotte Observer today on the the Gibbs family and Taylor's Finish Line Festival! Enjoy!

Thankful NASCAR family will stage festival - CharlotteObserver.com

Taylor's Finish Line Festival LIVE ONLINE AUCTION!

You are probably going to be seeing several posts from me during this last month leading up to Taylor's Finish Line Festival and the gigantic Cookies for Kids Cancer Bake Sale that I'm working on that's part of it! Click here to to go to the website and you will find the live auction on the bottom right side! Isn't this car awesome? They did it for the upcoming festival!

There is a huge online auction that went LIVE on the festival website on May 1. I wanted to invite you to go look and make a bid on something! All of the proceeds will be going towards Levine Children's Hospital and the Make-a-Wish Foundation! Below is a blurb Melissa wrote up about the auction for more detail...

Today is a big day for Taylor's Finish Line Festival! The auction that Grandma has headed up, goes live at noon! You can visit our website at www.finishlinefestival.com to click directly to the auction, which is being run through the NASCAR Foundation. There are some really incredible offerings, including a 14 person suite for a Redskin game, Yamaha motorcycles, a ski trip to Beaver Creek CO, baseballs autographed by Cal Ripken, a hockey stick signed by the entire Capitals team, an autographed copy of the cover of USA Today the morning after Dale Earnhardt won the Daytona 500, a basketball signed by Kobe Bryant, a Redskin helmet signed by Hall of Famers Darrell Green and Art Monk, an installed putting green, a leather jacket signed by Dale Earnhardt, Jr., a David Yurman necklace, a MAC tool chest, an autographed Richard Petty cowboy hat, a Sean Taylor autographed mini helmet, and lots of other sports memorabilia. These are some of the show-stoppers, but there are many other offerings. This would be a great way to support our efforts, particularly if you do not live locally in order to attend the festival. We can ship auction items anywhere, so don't be shy! And one more favor, would you consider passing on our website and specifically the auction information to your personal contacts? We love utilizing Facebook and blogs and Caringbridge sites if you'll have us! Thanks so much!

BAKE SALE!

{picture courtesy of The Pioneer Woman}

I am spending a lot of my free time on a very important event coming up this Spring! To celebrate Taylor Gibbs treatment ending in April, the Gibbs are putting on a huge carnival--Taylor's Finish Line Carnival! There will be mechanical rides, entertainment, and much more! All of the proceeds will go to Levine's Children's Hospital of Charlotte and the local Make-a-Wish Foundation. One other big aspect of the carnival is the Cookies for Kids Cancer Bake Sale! This is my baby :) I am working with my friend Emily, who works for this incredible foundation, Cookies for Kids Cancer. All of the money raised at the Bake Sale will go directly to fund research for pediatric cancer. If you can imagine it, we will be selling 10, 000-20,000 baked goods--homemade and donated--and doing a lot of other events along the way to prepare for the big event, including a fun all day Bake-a-thon! The Finish Line Carnival takes places on Sunday, May 23rd at the drag strip at Charlotte Motor Speedway. This is the day after the All-Star race and the hope is that the thousands of people camped out for the two Charlotte races, will come out to the carnival on Sunday!

I am so excited about giving my time to something that has impacted me! My life has obviously been touched by pediatric cancer and I'm looking forward to giving to this community of people that are being effected every day! If you are local and would like to get involved, we are making up our team of volunteers now (and we need lots of them!)--there are several different ways that you can get involved! You can also attend the carnival with your family--learn more about it on the website here!

Happy Birthday Jackson!

Well, we were a few months late on celebrating, but Jackson, the oldest Gibbs boy, turned 12 at the end of January! Is it possible that I met this boy when he was 6 and just starting first grade? He is not seeming like a "boy" anymore...he is almost as tall as me (not that that was an unattainable goal) and "very cool" in every sense of the word. But, not too cool to still give Miss Nicole hugs!

We had a fun dinner at our favorite--Mexican! Tucker LOVED hanging out with Jackson. He hung on his every word and tried to copy whatever it was he was doing. We came back to our house for him and Mr. Brad to rematch on Wii College Football...let's just say the birthday boy won :)

We love you Jackson and are so thankful that our little guy gets to look up to such a great young man!

Is this the cutest picture you've ever seem?

Yes. It. Is.

Happy Birthday Taylor!

Taylor turned 5! Hard to believe since I've been hanging out with this little guy since he entered the world! It has been one of the biggest privileges of my life to be in Taylor's life...especially because he is one of the most brave, courageous people I've ever met!

Taylor has continued to win my heart because of the way he LOVES my boy! Ever since Tucker was born, Taylor has been nothing short of a big brother! He loves our "Tucker days" when we hang out at his house every week and he never gets tired of entertaining him, playing with him, and being a great babysitter!

We had Taylor's "special birthday night" and I knew I wanted to cook a special dinner for Taylor. You see, Taylor has some very favorite foods...a very select few of them! Ever since he has been on a lot of different medicine, he has had some interesting food diversions and cravings! He LOVES cheese of every kind and steak! So, steak, macaroni and cheese, and tomato and mozzarella salad was served! He ate every bite!

Happy Birthday Tay! So happy to be in your life!

Celebrating all week long!

Sunday, I turned the big 2-9! In true Nicole fashion, I've been stretching my birthday out as long as possible :)

Last week, we had a fun girls night to celebrate my birthday as well as my friend, Meg's! It was so much fun and my mom even got to join us!

On my birthday, my family headed to Atlanta to see my sister and celebrate with her on finishing up esthetician school! We went out for a yummy Italian dinner and the best canoli I think I've ever had! More pictures to come from our time in Atlanta!

And, we're definitely saving the best for last... Melissa graciously offered to take Tucker tomorrow night--the WHOLE night--so that Brad and I could celebrate our birthdays (Brad's is this Sunday)! This will be the first night that we have both left him! He will have a blast having a sleepover with 4 boys that can't get enough of him and we will have fun just hanging out after 8 pm outside of our house :)

Thanks to all my family and friends for making my birthday special! Here's to my 29th year...

Tucker Weekly

Tucker is 43 weeks old! Today was a busy day! This morning, Bosten came to hang with us... I'm going to start keeping him here on Wednesday mornings and we're so excited to have a weekly playdate for the boys! This was the first time the boys actually seemed to notice each other, want to play with the same toys, and chase each other!

I love this boy's smile!

busy at work...After a fun visit/coffee hour with my friend Amy this afternoon, Brad, Tucker, and I left to go have a special birthday night with Jason Gibbs! Jason turned 7 yesterday! I can't believe this little guy that was just turning 2 and learning how to "pee in the potty" when I first met him, is this old! Jason has the most hilarious personality and there were several times we had a good laugh tonight, especially when he told us that he thinks a little girl in his class, Lauren, "likes him". He said, "She hangs around me a lot". Gotta love the 1st grade lovin! We had a good ol' dinner at Chick-fil-A and then went to play some putt-putt! Tucker did great just hanging in the stroller (even past his bedtime!) and it was a great time.

Jason is one of Tucker's favorite entertainers...he constantly interacts with him and Tucker loves him!

Happy Birthday Jason! It was so much fun to have a special night with you!

This past weekend, Tucker had a little virus...no other symptoms besides a fever, but he was definitely not himself... So, we are thankful he's back to normal these last few days! He's still moving all over the house, standing a ton, and keeping us busy!

Happy Wednesday!

Surprise!

We had a surprise birthday lunch to celebrate Melissa's "big" birthday! There are so many things I am grateful for when I think of Melissa and the way she has influenced my life over the past 6 years! It was so much fun to sit around a table full of her beautiful friends and listen to the sweet words they shared about their friendships with Melissa!

Happy Birthday Melissa... Love you and can't wait to celebrate many more!

Tuesday Fun!

It was just a matter of time before the boys started dressing Tucker up...





"Dress up as much as you want, as long as there are no pink, dresses, or long hair!" says Daddy! And to that I say, Tucker is in the right place...we will find nothing that even resembles a girl at that house!

Excuse the poor pictures...the camera phone was the only option I had!

2 years ago...

Today marks the 2 year anniversary that Taylor was diagnosed with Luekemia. For those of you who don't know, Taylor is the youngest of the 4 boys that I took care of these last 4 years. Before that life-altering day, he was just like any other 2 year old going to the doctor to find out why he couldn't get over a winter cold. That day would forever change his life and the life of his family. As I have said so many times before, I had the incredible priviledge of being right in the middle of their family during this crisis and a front row seat to all the ways that God would show himself faithful to this little boy that I love so much!
Taylor is doing great...He is in remission and still undergoing treatment in hopes to remain that way. There are struggles still, especially with all the side effects of the chemo and other medicene that he takes, but he still remains an energetic, happy 4 year old! Although I don't get to see him every day now, we don't go too long without hanging out and he treats Tucker like his little brother, which is precious to me!
Melissa, Taylor's mom, just wrote a recent entry on Taylor's caring bridge page and it is a little update as well as some great perspective on all they have been through. You will be blessed by reading her words!

Taylor and I when I was very pregnant!

Pancakes and Numchucks

This year I decided to start a new tradition with the Gibbs boys (the boys I have helped take care of these last 4 years). For their birthdays, we're going to start having a "special night" together... they have plenty of "stuff" so I'll pass on the gift and take the opportunity to spend time with them,and one-on-one time at that, which is so rare! Miller just had his 9th birthday this week. We told him we would go to a restaurant of his choice and then come back to our house so him and "Mr. Brad" could play the Wii--a big winner of course! Miller picked IHOP, so chocolate chip pancakes it was! He brought one of his favorite motocross Wii games and I'm pretty sure Brad struggled to win a game!
Happy Birthday Miller! We look forward to spending many more with you!

I took a few pictures that night, but maybe I didn't have my memory card in? Here's a picture of Miller with the Tucker on the day he was born!

Had to share...

This morning, following our date night last night, Melissa emailed me to share this hilarious thing that Taylor told her... She still has a pack and play, so she set it up in her room last night for Tucker to sleep in. This morning she was breaking it down when Taylor came in. She said he got mad at her, telling her it needed to stay up for Tucker. He said, "I'm not going to give you the trophy for Best Mom award anymore!" HILARIOUS... and so sweet that he thinks Tucker just belongs at their house. As far as I'm concerned, that pack and play can stay up as long as you want! :)

On another note, today was a good day... I'm feeling much better and with the exception of last night, I haven't left the house all week. I think Tucker has been feeling neglected that I've never taken him to Starbucks before, so Starbucks we went! Oh the irony--there was Christmas music playing and it was 76 degrees outside! But the pumpkin spice latte was delicious! Then we took our time walking around a few stores and it was so nice! Tucker just sleeps the whole time...he's a natural shopper :) It does take an effort to get out the door--I feel like I have to start thinking in the morning how to work my whole day around leaving the house for 2 hours, but there is something about walking around stores with no purpose just to waste time...time that I would just be sitting at home trying to catch up on laundry or thank you notes or one of the many other things hanging over my head. The day ended with a delicious dinner that was cooked for us...does it get any better than that?

Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhh.....

That is how we feel tonight after the wonderful gift of a DATE NIGHT!!! That's right... a real date, Brad and I...no Tucker...out at our favorite restaurant... I've definitely never appreciated this so much! Recently, the Gibbs gave us a gift card to our favorite local place to eat--131 Main--and along with that, they offered to be our first babysitters, encouraging us to take them up on it in the first month of parenthood. So, tonight, we cashed it in--just a few days shy of Tucker's 1 month birthday--and we were so thankful! Like I mentioned in the last post, it has been a tough week and in a lot of ways, leading up to going out tonight felt like a little more work and stress than it was worth, but of course, it was SO WORTH IT! On the contrary, it probably came right at the perfect time. We enjoyed some yummy dinner and even splurged on our favorite key lime dessert as well. Our "babysitters" that came in the form of 4 little boys, are so sweet with Tucker. They really do treat him like a little brother that they want to nurture and take care of and I LOVE to watch it! I just picture Tucker trying to keep up with them as soon as he gets on his feet! I couldn't imagine anyone I'd rather have "babysit" Tucker than Melissa... So, thanks guys for the great gift of dinner...a night out...and for lovin on our boy!

Tucker's first visitors...

Thanks to everyone for all the excitement for us over little Tucker Bradley! We have had such a fun few days and we have LOVED having some of our friends and family be with us here at the hospital! We will be going later today and look forward to many more of you meeting the little man! He is a cutie, if I must say myself :)

The end of a great season...

What a special night we had last night! The Gibbs, the family I work for, wanted to have a "retirement party" for me before the baby came to celebrate our time together. I had no idea how sweet the night would be! Brad and I drove up to see all 4 boys, dressed up in their white shirts and jeans, with hair fixed and all, holding a beautiful bouquet of flowers for me, "Miss Nicole". They ran to greet me and we immediately started a photo session to get pictures with all the boys and me. Melissa thought of all the details...making all my favorite foods that she makes--a yummy sun dried tomato dip for an appetizer, tortilla soup, guacamole, and ending with a yummy chocolate cake with chunky cherry icing! We ate a "fancy" dinner on the dining room table as the boys served as waiters. The most special time of the night came when they gifted me something I will treasure FOREVER--letters. Melissa and all the boys except little Taylor of course, wrote me letters of thanks for these years we've had together. They took it to the next level and each read their letter out loud to me... so, of course, no dry eyes were present! It was precious to hear the things they had to say and the memories that come to their minds when they remember all of our time together. Melissa blessed me beyond words with her sweet letter to me...I think the boys were very concerned with how hard they saw "Mommy and Miss Nicole" crying (something they don't see very often)! Melissa and I have just always been amazed and blessed by how well this situation has worked and although I'm excited about taking care of my own baby and they are in great shape for me to leave, it is sad as we think about not seeing each other most days of the week and sharing in the friendship that we have grown so used to. Thankfully, this relationship with the Gibbs will continue...the boys are all ready to be brothers to my baby (they are all hoping for a little boy, of course!) and I can't wait to continue to watch them grow up!

As I finish up this four year season of taking care of the Gibbs boys--I like to think I've had "the best internship ever"! It is hard to believe that almost 4 1/2 years ago, I sat across from Melissa for an "interview"--still on Young Life staff, not engaged yet, and thinking that being a nanny would be a great temporary job as I moved to Huntersville. We could have never known that it would not only turn out to be my job for the next 4 years, but that we would become like family and partners in their household in the most perfect and natural way that you could imagine. When I started working for them, Taylor, the youngest, at almost 4 years old, was not even born yet...Jackson, a 5th grader, was just starting 1st grade, Jason, at 6, was just potty training and barely talking, and Miller, at 8, was just in preschool! I could never write enough about how much I have learned from Melissa on motherhood... she is so many things that I hope to become and after seeing her in the day to day routine, the hard times, and the easier times, I am so amazed at her consistency, integrity, and faithfulness as she plays the role of Mom to these 4 busy boys. I couldn't have watched a better example and I KNOW I will be a better mom because of her! To say the least, we have seen each other through a lot in these years... from small milestones like taking first steps, learning to read, learning to swim or ride a bike, and first days of school... to the more intense times of Taylor's battle with leukemia...

As a lot of you know, Melissa is a gifted writer, and I'll leave you with a few excerpts from her letter that sum things up well...

"I can't imagine a situation that you can't handle. You have cared for twin newborns, potty trained, home-schooled, administered chemo, cleaned up vomit, mini-golfed with a baby strapped to your chest, sat through an elementary school play, and learned the words to hundreds of songs on XM Kids."

"I hope you will smile a little smile of remembrance when your child takes that first bite of rice cereal, or take a first step, or goes poo-poo on the potty, or cries at the sight of a costume "character", or learns to read, or jumps to you from the side of the pool, or sings "God is so Good". I hope you'll fondly recall your first "children".

So, here I go...leaving this great experience and off to become mommy to my own little one. Thankfully Melissa is just a phone call away...

Enjoy this slideshow from the last few years!