It's party time!

We had the girls party on saturday and it was a beautiful day for celebrating!

Everyone( literally, there were over 50 people including kiddos... i was amazed at how many friends were able to celebrate our sweet girls) "Fluttered" over for some birthday fun around 3:00!

The clouds and butterflies over the garden :)
The food and yummy cake and cupcakes

They looked so cute in their tutus
and bloomers :)
Cake Time
They studied it for a while then went to town!
She had a "Santa Claus" beard by the time she was finished!
Gift time

This is what Evie did the whole time we opened gifts...she played with every gift! ha

This is what Ramsey did...she just wanted to go where she pleased and kept screaming , can we say too much sugar....

We had so much fun and again are so blessed by all our friends and family that came!!

Thank you so much!

It happened a year ago...

Evie and Ramsey were born!!

What a year it has been. A complete whirlwind of fun and craziness. I think one year parties should be to celebrate the parents survival! We had a great week celebrating last week!
Their actual bday was the 25th. Jonathan had to go to Dallas for work and it just so happened he was on the same trip last year. He got home around 5:30 and my water broke at 6:00!

Mom spent the night with us and we went to wake up the girls singing Happy Birthday!

They thought we were silly.

The beginning of our sugar high started with cinnamon rolls for breakfast

They were enjoyed by all!

We met Rob and Amber for lunch at chikfila

We went shopping for last minute birthday party things then met Hayley, Charlie, Garland, Emily and Ella at Muddys for a cupcake( we already had some ice cream at chickfila.....)

Ella ate our leftovers!

My favorite part of the day was when this sweet girl sang happy birthday to Evie and Ramsey...melt my heart

I would like to say that Jonathan told us we were not allowed to celebrate until he got home...he said it wasn't really their birthday until 8:59 and 9:00 pm...let's hope he doesn't read the blog.

When daddy got home he installed their new car seats and we went for a ride to get dinner.

They love facing forward!

I do have a question for you older wiser moms. They can still fit into their baby car seats. Should i keep them in those for a little while longer, safety wise, or do you think they are ok front facing. They are 20 pounds and of course one but i know people are saying rear facing is best for longer. The problem is, we got the graco 3 in 1 which we LOVE by the way, but you can not set them up rear facing. So if we choose to continue rear facing we would have to use their baby seats. What do you guys think?

This looks extrememly uncomfortable!

They stayed asleep this way so i guess it wasnt as uncomfortable as it looks, but i feel like if we got in a wreck they would break their necks. You can recline the seats a little bit and i might try that then reinstall them. I have neck things for them like you use on an airplane so i could try that?
anyhoo, sorry to get off on a car seat tangent, just thought i would see what you guys thought.

I hope the girls had a great birthday. I think i enjoyed it more than they did. I still can't believe they are one. They are getting so big, eating big girl food and feeding themselves. They are into everything, pulling up , standing and furniture walking. Ramsey will actually stand for a long time but hasn't quite moved her feet forward all the way. Anyday now i guess!

I love my babies so much and yes some days i want to scream and give up and then days like today they make me so happy and i am honored to be their mommy. The Lord has blessed us more than we could imagine and their is nothing we can give him in return that would be worthy.
I am always reminded of Third days song "offering"
Magnificent Holy Father
I stand in awe of all I see
Of all the things You have created
But still You choose to think of me
Who am I that You should suffer
Your very life to set me free
The only thing that I can give You
Is the life You gave to me
This is my offering, dear Lord
This is my offering to You, God
And I will give You my life
For it’s all I have to give
Because You gave Your life for me
I stand before You at this altar
So many have given You more
I may not have much I can offer
Yet what I have is truly Yours.
I am reminded of how angry i was with him when Catherine Grace passed and yet he chose to think of me and bless me with two more little lives to love and i am truly grateful.
It is really great to see how much people love and are thankful for our babies as well. I have never gotten so many emails,texts, cards and even videos of sweet friends singing happy birthday to Evie and Ramsey as i did on their birthday. I love when people say that Evie and Ramsey are an example of Gods Goodness. It is really great to hear that!
Thank you for loving them as much as we do!
Happy birthday sweet girls!

plastered

One tough parenting decision down...a gazillion more to go...

lets hope we made the right choice.

As most of you know Evie has head and neck issues. Her head was extremely flat on one side when she was born. This resulted in torticollis which just means one side of her neck is stronger than the other. She would constantly lay on the left side of her head no matter how many times we would lay her to the right.

We went to a nerologist several months after she was born and said it should correct itself and to come back in a few mths. It did get a little better but when we went back he gave us a prescription for a cranial band (molding helmet) he said it was our choice. I wish he had just said do it or she doesn't need it.
We sent the info to insurance to see if they would pay ( the helmets are several thousand dollars ) and if the doc didn't think it was necessary and insurance wouldn't pay then we wouldn't do it.
Well insurance agreed that it was more than just cosmetic and they agreed to pay in full.
This made us feel like we should do it but we continued putting it off hoping it would get better.
Her physical therapist recommended we see someone else and gave us several reasons why not correcting it could give her problems in the future.
Too many signs pointed to yes. I wish i still had my magic eight ball, that thing would have really helped me out....
We decided to go see someone this morning and he agreed it would be for her benefit and the helmet would help her so we just did it.

Before it all went down...sweet girl had no idea

They covered her with vaseline then put a stocking like thing over her head and face.

She hated it and just started crying and trying to pull it off.

Then they started putting the plaster all over her head, it was dripping down her face and squishing her eyes shut and the crying continued....then it hardened and he stuck this yellow thing up the back and tried to cut it off.

Well she was eating a baby goldfish at the time and staretd choking on it, that scared her and she cried even harder.

Then he tried to pull it off and it wouldnt budge so he was pulling and her eyes and neck and everything were coming with it..crying continued.

Then he went to get a saw, you know the ones they take casts off with. He turned it on and she was fine..then he touched her head with it. Her face was a look of sheer panic. She started screaming and crying, throwing her hands everywhere.

He finally was able to pull it off and she collapsed in my chest doing the heavy breathing half crying thing.

Look at her face...its fuzzy but you can tell she is so angry!!

Her eyes were bright red and she had plaster all over her face and clothes.

I put her in my dads lap and started getting things together and she started screaming and throwing her body fwd to get down and reaching for me. I picked her back up and she held on so tight! It kind of made me laugh because i had never seen her act this way. She really loves me! ha I truly felt like a mom at that point!

She feel straight to sleep in the car and here she is still asleep in her car seat while we ate Panera. She hasn't done this in months!

We should get the helmet the end of next week. We will go back to him every few weeks to check how it is working and do adjustments. We don't know how long, month wise she will wear it but its 23 hours a day! They say it doesn't bother them and they get used to it so i hope so! I ordered solid white or light pink, they were going to see what was in stock, then i can decorate it! you know me...

My view this week...

More to come!

look alike contest

We would totally win....

Mr. Sun oh how we missed you!

I don't know about yall but having the sun out completely lifts my spirits!

We joined the zoo this year and got a membership to where we can have a guest come with us for free. It is totally worth it and only $20 more a year. It cost $15 just to get in once. I comletely recomend it if you havent done it.
Anyway, mom and i took advantage of it and headed that way on Friday afternoon.

The animals were all out now that it is warmer so we got to see everything and even met the newest zoo member...

Akili

She was born the last week of January

isn't she cute?

The girls enjoyed playing peekaboo, their favortie to play now. They put stuff over their faces and wait for you to say "wheres..."and then pull it down. Its amazing what they can learn and how much more they do from even a few weeks ago!

Daddy met us after work!

I think the sun helped them to be happy , we were able to be there for several hours and they just chilled and looked at everything. The both clapped for the sea lions during their show! ha

Then we headed home and did some swinging till the sun went down

best buddies

Evie and Maddie have had quite the connection since the very beginning...

If you know us at all you know we are obsessed, to say the least, with our Maddie girl. I gave her to Jonathan while we were in college and she is the sweetest little thing. She sleeps in the middle of the bed and anywhere else she pleases, eats people food, "convinces" us to take her for a walk when its pouring or like the past few weeks, snowing.

She is a very good dog though, doesnt chew things, bite or growl. Well she barks at these greyhounds that walk in the neighborhood. Their owner kicked her and she hasn't forgotten. If you say "get those greyhounds" she goes nuts and runs to the window growling and barking!
Other than that she wouldn't hurt a fly. We don't even hesitate to let her get near or around the girls. I can hear some of you gasping now.
I have talked alot about how Evie smiles, laughs and reaches for Maddie when she comes near her, it is so cute. Well, she has learned that if she puts her hand next to the highchair that maddie will come lick her hand. So then she started putting her puffs in her hand and giving them to her. I finally remembered to film her.

Please notice how gentle Maddie is taking the food from her, love her!