Happy 2nd Birthday to Our Sweet Emily!

We celebrated our sweet Emily's 2nd birthday this weekend with friends and family over for a princess party! The girls love their Disney princesses, so we thought it would be fitting to theme her birthday around them.

I made Emily a princess castle cake this year. For this being only my fifth cake that I have ever decorated, I was pleased with how it turned out. It made my birthday princess happy, so that's all that mattered. I looked up images of princess cakes on the internet, put my computer on my kitchen table, and just tried to copy one with a few changes of my own. I had fun working on it, and I was just happy to be able to make Emily feel extra special.

Emily and Elaina

The birthday princess was so excited about her cake!

Mommy and one of her princesses

My mom was here to help me get everything ready for her party. I tend to overdo it, so it was great that she was here. She was a huge help! Thanks, Mom! You're the best Mom/MeMe ever! Jeff was a huge help, too. He took Friday off of work because we had several dentist/doctor appointments in the morning and then just had a few hours after we got home in the afternoon to get everything finished up for her party. He is the best husband/father in the world! We had a wonderful party for Emily!

Thank you to all of her friends and family who came and shared in her princess celebration. We are so very blessed that Emily has each of you in her life. She is a very loved little princess, and please know we love you all, too!

Emily opening her gift from Elaina . . . Disney Princesses!

Great Maw-Maw Alice was able to come for Emily's party! What a special treat!

Yummy!

Daddy and Elaina carrying Emily to her bedroom after a long day and a super fun party that evening. She was worn out! Mommy felt the same way, but no one carried her to bed like this!

Emily also had her 2 year well visit today, and she did great for the doctor! Elaina went with us, and was a huge help by showing Emily exactly what she needed to do. She is growing well, and the doctor was impressed that she knew her "right and left" and also came in to her doctor visit in "big girl panties" and is both day/night potty trained. Of course, we do still have our occasional accidents when she gets too busy playing at a friends house or some place other than home, but she is doing a great job, and we are so proud of her! In fact, she went six days straight without any day/night accidents at all last week. She tells us that she needs to potty by saying, "Wa-wa potty!" and to take care of her "number two's" by saying, "Snake potty!" We can all thank her big sister and Daddy for that one! What little ladies he has around here! Auntie Leah would be proud. Emily absolutely wants NO help at all when going to the bathroom. It seems like a 10 minute ordeal. She has to pull her own pants and panties off without help. She has to put the toilet seat up, get her soft potty seat on the regular toilet seat, get her step and place it up to the toilet so that she can climb up onto the toilet by herself, etc. so on and so forth. This is all great, but it just takes her forever. Sometimes I'm afraid it's going to take her so long that she'll have an accident while she's trying to get everything situated, but she ends up making it. If you try to offer help, she demands, "NO, ME! ME DO!" She loves wearing her princess panties! We bought her a package of princess panties as her reward for learning how to potty. She was thrilled with them, so hey, why not. Nothing but princess panties, right?

Dear Emily, you are our sweetheart. We love your snuggles and your kisses. We love to watch you pray with your eyes squinted super tightly shut and interrupt your own prayers with "ME?". We love how you twirl you hair into knots when you're tired and how you love BABY animals . . . especially baby whoo-whoos. We love how you love your sister and "Mommy's baby" that is coming soon. We love how you race out to the driveway to meet Daddy at his truck as soon as he is home from work. Daddy loves how you are especially his girl. We love your love for outdoors and bubbles, and Daddy loves how you and Elaina enjoy loud Toby Mac music in his truck with him. Now, about that temper of yours and lack of patience, your favorite word to Mommy being "NO!", how grumpy you are when you wake up from your naps (just like your Mommy) ummmmm . . . well, we will continue to work on that. We are so fortunate that God blessed you with us and is allowing us to care for you. We pray daily that He will guide us in raising you the way that He desires us to. We love you, Emmy! Happy Birthday, Love!

Emily showing us how old she is, "TWO!"

The Best Mother's Day Yet!

I was treated to a wonderful Mother's Day. It was the best Mother's Day yet! It was perfectly simple, and I loved every minute of it!

Sunday mornings are always busy because we are at church by 8:30 a.m., and with three girls in the house to get beautified, it's pretty hectic. ;) Jeff and Elaina got up early and went to the donut shop and came home with donuts and a nice, big, Mt. Dew Polar Pop for me for my Mother's Day breakfast! YUMMY! I was so excited (and so were the girls)!

The girls enjoying a Mother's Day breakfast of donuts.

Then, the girls gave me their homemade cards. Those really didn't surprise me. Elaina let that out earlier in the week that they had made them for me. When we were coloring cards for their grandmas, and I was explaining to them why we were sending their grandmas cards, she said, "But, Mommy, we already made your wonderful pictures. Daddy hides them. Then, we go to church, and after church, we will hide them behind our backs and say, 'SURPRISE!'" Then, she stopped abruptly, looked at me with BIG eyes, and said, "Uhhh . . . I not say that. I not tell you that." It was so funny! She realized after getting excited and telling me all of that that she was supposed to wait. It was really sweet. It's hard because we teach the girls not to keep secrets from us. We do this for their protection. We tell them that they are always to tell us about things, and we try to explain the difference between a surprise and a secret, and that we don't keep secrets from each other. On one of my cards, Jeff had the girls tell him ten "Things We Want To Tell Momma." Here's what they were: (I love the first two that Jeff said came immediately out of Elaina's mouth. She has such a love for Jesus at such a young age.)

1. Jesus Loves You! (Elaina)
2. Jesus Lives! (Elaina)
3. Kitty Cat (Emily)
4. Grrr . . . (Emily's ferocious growl!)
5. Ice cream (Elaina)
6. Wa-Wa Potty! (Emily - translation: "I have to go pee in the potty!")
7. Poo-Poo Can-Nee (Emily - translation: "I have to #2 in the potty, and I want a piece of
candy when I'm done!")
8. You are beautiful. (Elaina)
9. Thank you. (Elaina and Emily)
10. We love you! (Elaina and Emily)

We have also been working with Elaina on how to write her name, so she worked on writing her name on my cards as well. Right now, her favorite letter is a because there are two in her name, and she likes to say, "Circle with a stick," so I had a lot of a's on my cards.

When it was time to leave for church, we decided to take a few pictures. Usually, I am the one taking the pictures, so there are usually more pictures of Daddy with the girls than there are of me with the girls. So, this morning, Daddy took the pictures. Here we are getting ready to leave for church for the morning.

My beautiful girls

Elaina wanted to stand on a step to show how big she was for this picture.

Silly girl!

Oh, how blessed I am! LOVE THEM!

The girls love their baby!

Elaina and her dear friend, Hannah, at church. So cute!

We usually don't get home from church until 12:15 p.m., so we are always hungry and tired! We decided to come home and warm up some quick leftovers for lunch and get girls down for naps. Before we had lunch though, the girls each came walking into my bedroom with gifts behind their backs for me. I love Willow Tree figurines, and each of them had one picked out for me. Of course, Jeff helped some. He wanted each of the girls to give me one that would remind me of them in a special way. Emily gave me "Tenderness." Emily likes to be held like the child in the figurine is being held. She loves to snuggle, so I will always think of her when I see this figurine. Elaina gave me "The Dancer." How appropriate! She is my little dancer. She loves to dance! She dresses up every day, sometimes all day long, and dances to music on a cd, or to music that she sings herself. She makes up dances - very interpretive might I add. ;) She loves to dance with her Daddy, too. She loves to do her gymnastics in the house. So of course, this will always make me think of her. The gifts were a huge surprise, and I loved them!

Emily's gift to me - "Tenderness"

Elaina's gift to me - "The Dancer"

The girls took naps, and Jeff and I relaxed on the couch for the afternoon and did a few things that we needed to get done. For dinner, we went out for Mexican. It was YUMMY! I think Emily enjoyed it the most. She chowed down on chips, salsa, cheese sauce, beans and rice! It was so fun to see her enjoy it so much. After dinner, we came home, had ice cream and played outside.

It was a wonderful day! I was treated so well, and was definitely shown how loved and appreciated I am. I am so blessed that God gave me such a beautiful, wonderful family. I have the greatest husband who is also the greatest father to our precious girls, and my girls are so wonderful! I have to remember during those times that I get frustrated or those times when my girls aren't perfect like I wished they would be, that I am so blessed to have a husband and children who love the Lord and that I can go to HIM with all of my fears and frustrations of daily parenting. It is my prayer that I be a Godly example to my children and teach them about Jesus and how much HE loves them. I am truly not worthy!

30 weeks with #3! - Mother's Day 2009

Me and my girls (Elaina 3 yrs. 4 months; Emily 1 week shy of her 2nd birthday!)
Mother's Day 2009

Planting Mommy's Flowers with MeMe

Every May, my mom comes down, and we work out in the yard for a day - all day - planting flowers. I always look so forward to this, especially now with the girls because it would take me probably three days to get done what we get done in one day with my mom. Between taking breaks for snack, swinging, bubbles, potty, etc . . . it would not be as fun if my mom wasn't here to help. We had a beautiful day of planting my flowers, and the girls had a ball. We were outside ALL day; they didn't take naps, and they were a MESS when it came to be 8:00 p.m. and time to go inside - especially since towards the end of the evening, Elaina thought she would shampoo Emily's hair with bubbles. They loved digging for worms in the dirt, but neither one wanted to touch the worms. I don't blame them . . . that's why I wear gloves when I plant! Leave it to Emily, though, to find a baby worm. Emily LOVES baby animals, so while digging in the dirt, I wasn't surprised that she was the one to find a baby worm. She was so excited!

Thank you, MeMe, for a wonderful day of planting flowers. I'm still exhausted though from the long day, so off I go for a nap!

Emily's baby worm

Planting Mommy's flowers

MeMe and her girls

Note to self: Potting soil and bubble solution make for very messy toddlers! Elaina is just getting started in this picture with Emily's shampoo job. As usual, Emily is just going along with it without a care in the world.

Elaina getting more into the shampooing of Emily's hair with the bubble solution, and Emily still not having a care in the world about it . . . just concerned with blowing her own bubbles.

Finding Adequate Words to Express Our Thanks

On Saturday, we had the privilege of attending Dr. Donald Cline's Retirement Open House. Some of you may remember that Dr. Cline is (was) our Reproductive Endocrinologist who led us on our journey of conceiving Elaina Joy and also most recently caring for us during our first trimester of this third pregnancy.

The open house was held at Dr. Cline's church, Zionsville Fellowship, on the northside of Indianapolis. It was a beautiful day and a beautiful open house for Dr. Cline. As we entered the church, we were greeted by Dr. Cline and were able to personally thank and congratulate him. As we were waiting in line to do so, I could not help but become overwhelmed with emotions as I watched in awe the other lives in the room that he has touched in an awesome way. The line of greeters who came to say "thank you" was flowing with expressions of emotions as well, so I didn't feel so out of place. The thankfulness that we have in our hearts for Dr. Cline is abundant. After our short conversation with him, it was almost as if we needed to find the perfect words to say, "Thank you." In a brief second that seemed like so long, I searched for those words, and all I could come up with was simply, "Thank you" as Jeff and I both embraced him and shared in a few tears.

Dr. Cline will always be a huge part of our lives as we tell others how God blessed us with a beautiful family by placing us in the care of a doctor who places all of his faith and trust in HIM.

Just a Few Recent Pics . . .

The girls at Hannah's opening day T-ball game. It was a gorgeous day!

The girls enjoying the beautiful day!

A Saturday picnic lunch in the back of Daddy's truck.