Birthday Celebrations

Yesterday we celebrated Cara's birthday in a combined party with her twin cousins. She was born one day after Toby and Marshall. Aunt Charity called us the morning of September 3, 2007 and said she had gone into labor. She was not due for a few weeks, but had been having contractions for months. The doctors decided to go ahead and deliver her this time instead of stopping the contractions. I was busy cleaning house and getting loose ends tied up because I was scheduled to be induced the next day. So, we stopped what we were doing and headed up to Tulsa to offer our congratulations to Charity and the family. I have to say...I was kinda jealous that she stole my spotlight, but I am so glad that her boys were born healthy and beautiful. We got home late and met my mom who was going to stay with us and watch Merilee while I was being induced and then help with the new baby. I will have to add what a miserable, painful experience I had with Cara's delivery and the 8 month recovery later.

The party went pretty smooth. The babies opened gifts and then played in the chaos. Then it was cake time. Cara did beautifully! I knew she would love sweets...it's in her genes. The twins had a hard time at first because they don't sit in high chairs and did not want to sit on the paper tablecloth. It took a little bit but pretty soon, they were covered in cake too! They hated the bath afterwords...I have never heard such ear shattering screams! Cara calmly finished her cupcake, took a bath, and dressed for the final photos before everyone left. It rained and we were blessed with a beautiful complete arched rainbow. After sweeping, mopping, and vacuuming, the house is ready to go for party number 2 tomorrow with my side of the family!

This is the cake that Justin's sister, Charity brought. The picture was taken on Cara's blessing day.
Justin's mom (Babushka), Aunt Carrie, and Justin. Cara is watching the OSU game...touchdown!!
Cara is wearing the bow from Babushka and Grandad's gift.
Givin' some love to the Ladybug.
Cara loved her cupcake. It was a boring white cake because of her reaction to chocolate, but she LOVED it. I did not find a single crumb on the floor. It all ended up on her face, hands, tray, and tummy! She ate it so quietly too!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARSHALL, TOBY, AND CARA!!!

You Are Ginger

Like ginger, you are a total shape shifter. You can be sweet, spicy, mellow, or overpowering. You are both soothing and unique. You are popular... yet you are often overlooked.

What Spice Are You?

Princesses

Our house if full of princesses. I am number 1 princess, Merilee number 2, and Cara number 3. We enjoyed watching "Enchanted" on TV tonight and Merilee was so excited it was on. She literally dropped what she was doing and threw herself on the couch while saying, "Mommy, look it's a princess movie, yeah!!!!" She only got distracted for a few minutes doing other things, but as the movie was getting close to the end, she kept asking if it was over yet. I kept telling her, "No, not yet", and she would then keep watching. Well, as soon as the credits came on she erupted in a terribly sad cry, and begged to watch it again. She even had to watch the movie in her Snow White dress-up dress.

Cara kept bringing me her snack 'container thing' and demanding that I give her some. She has been saying "hi" continuously and has also starting giving "real" kisses with her lips and it even makes the kissy sound. Yesterday she even mimicked Merilee and blew a kiss. She has had a reaction to chocolate and it has given her a blistering diaper rash. She hardly had a taste of it! I made some chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast and each pancake only had like 5 chips in it and she only had one. I have a tradition of not giving the kids sweets until after their first birthday, but let this one slide. I would hate to think of the rash she would get after eating a piece of her chocolate birthday cake. She has this horrible reaction to milk products as well and REFUSES to even drink cow or soy milk. Maybe some of you who's kids have allergies can shed some light on this for me. I haven't mentioned it to her Doctor yet.

A good friend of mine is sending me my body type's menu for Michael Thurman's six week body makeover. She is having great success, so I hope I can have some results as well. I will have to post before and after pics if the change is as substantial as they say it can be. I've been exercising regularly for 3 months now...I'm talking 1-2 hours/day, and I have only lost a couple pounds. This meal plan is supposed to jumpstart your metabolism. I am SO excited to try it!!

Well, that's all for now...enjoy the pics of the princesses!

Princess number 1 (Me) with Merilee after her second ear tube surgery.

Princess number 2 (Merilee) pretending to smell a flower at the botanical gardens in Grove, OK last summer.

Princess number 3 (Cara) playing with the annoying singing hamsters...she absolutely loves them!!!

Merilee looking super sporty before we left to go work out!

Still playing with the hamsters, Cara?!?! And Daddy's shorts;)

A Lovely Sunday Afternoon

It was a beautiful day outside today. It definately did not feel like mid-August...thank goodness. We enjoyed afternoon naps and then after dinner we went outside to eat watermelon. Since it was so nice out we went for a walk to the park. Here are a few pictures of our peaceful Sabbath.

Merilee dancing in the front yard.

Cara hates the grass, so Daddy is making her stand in it to get a reaction.

And what do you know...she did not like it!

Baby's First Words

So instead of waiting until evening to have our family walk, I decided to walk the girls to the community Youth Center. On the way we saw some roofers and Cara waved her arm and said "Hi". She has done this off and on, but I think that she is catching on pretty well. I was shocked that she did it with no coaxing. Once at the youth center, we played basketball and played with the exercise balls in the aerobics room. For being such a dinky town, Cushing has a nice youth center and water park. I was tired of carrying Cara in the snuggly so I put her in the stroller and made Merilee walk. After Merilee's whining about not wanting to walk and her feet hurting, we returned home with a blister on my heel and blisters on Merilee's baby toes. I will need to put her in tennis shoes next time instead of crocs. It felt good being more productive in the morning! Justin still wants to walk tonight, so he is just waiting for me to finish typing so we can go. We have to get back in time to get the girls to bed before the women's gymnastics finals start. I love watching the olympics!! I need to find some other fun things to occupy my time this week because I am in a dull rut. Any ideas on free family activities?

Life...In Pictures!!

What better way to update everyone than in pictures? And pictures are more fun anyway!!

In some of my friends' blogs, they mentioned making pizza for a family home evening activity, so I thought we would try it too. Nice idea except, I ended up making the whole thing while Merilee napped and Justin took a shower. It was my very first time to make a homemade pizza (from a pizza crust mix) and it turned out very well. It is uncooked here but very tasty fresh out of the oven. It had sauce, mushrooms, red and green peppers, olives, pepperoni, onions, and cheese..yummy!!


This is what Cara did while I made pizza. She did not last too long in the corner so I moved her into the kitchen. Don't mind the hole in the wall. It has been there for 2 + years. It is one of the honey do's that never gets done, and we have tried to cover it up with furniture, etc. One of these days, when I learn how to fix it, I will patch the wall myself!
Daddy was being so cute and playing with the girls, so I needed some documentation of the occassion. Merilee was pretending to be a doctor and Cara was crawling all over him.

What a tough job! Wearing a necklace on your head and relaxing with the girls!

I usually don't disturb the kids during nap time and try to be extra quiet while they sleep because I don't even want to chance waking them up before they are ready. But on this day, Cara had to cry herself to sleep for a few minutes and so I went to check on her and found her sleeping like this. I had to capture the moment. Sleeping babies is one of the most peaceful things to look at.

After checking on Cara, I wondered how Merilee was sleeping and I found her just as peaceful. She is so beautiful!! My very own sleeping beauty.

Later that night after baths, I finally got around to taking a picture of how long Merilee's hair has gotten. I have never cut it, not even a trim. I only trim her bangs. She says she doesn't want me to cut it because then she couldn't be Rapunzel. She twirls her hair while she sucks her thumb and would come into my room in the middle of the night with her finger stuck in a hair knot. It got to be a regular occurance, so I have had to start braiding her hair at night. It has helped a lot but she still pulls out a little strand of hair to twirl. She is trained to go find hair bands so that I can put her hair up in the morning. I love having a girl that loves her long hair because there are so many things to do with it. (She will sit still while I fix it and has a very tough head, so combing it isn't miserable). However, she has not always been good about leaving the pretty bows and such alone while they are in her hair.