Baby Mia

My sister Kelly got some of the results from her amnio today. It did confirm that their baby girl, named Mia Faith, has trisomy 13. Please continue to pray for this baby to be a strong fighter. Pray for peace and comfort for Kelly and Kevin as they face many unknowns. Pray for God to be glorified through Mia's life. It's hard in these situations to understand why these things happen, but we are trusting that God is sovereign and that His plan is best, even though it seems really difficult right now. Thank you for your prayers.

Here's a pic of big sister Riley and her baby sister Mia

Here's the update from Kelly:
Baby Mia has trisomy 13...this is not good for her future. At this time we have chosen to continue with the pregnancy. She still has a strong heartbeat and was moving around when we saw her on ultrasound earlier. Please continue to pray for a miracle for her. This is by far the hardest thing we've ever faced in our life and the days ahead will not be easy. All of the encouraging words, prayers, phone calls, messages , etc have been so helpful and comforting. There is no way I can respond to each one of them but know we are reading them. Love in Christ to you all!

Please continue to pray

Please continue to pray for my newest niece. 

Here's an update from my sister Kelly after her dr's appt yesterday:

Well here's what we found out today at our dr appt...baby GIRL still has the hygroma. Dr noticed today that her brain is not developing as it should for this age and there appears to be something going on with her kidneys. We had the amnio test today (very painful) and we are going back Monday for the first test results. We will not jump to conclusions but baby girl needs a miracle. Gods plan is perfect...Psalms 139: 13-14

We know that God is making her exactly as He has planned. We continue to pray for a healthy baby and mommy and we know that nothing is too hard for our God. Please pray for faith and peace for our entire family, especially for Kelly and Kevin, during this time.

Our Growing Family

I went for my 28 week checkup yesterday. The babies are growing and doing well. Each one weighs right at 2 1/2 lbs and is measuring where they would be if they were singletons. My blood pressure is good, my iron levels are back up (they were low 2 weeks ago), and everything else seems to be going well. Baby boy is now head down (yeah!) but baby girl turned back around and now she's head up. Hopefully she'll turn back down soon. I'm still hoping that they'll both be head down and I can avoid a c-section if possible. I'm tired and sore, but I think that's fairly common for a twin pregnancy :) At most I have 10 weeks left, maybe only 8 or 9. That seems like a short time to have 2 babies here but seems like a long time to still be pregnant. We are all excited about meeting these two little ones and seeing their sweet faces.

Here's a fun family Easter pic. Will was not excited about us taking pictures.

And Catherine took a pic of me yesterday. 28 weeks and counting....

Spring Dance Recital

For the past 3 years, Catherine has taken dance from a friend of ours. She teaches two dance classes in her living room on Tuesday afternoons. It's simple and sweet and a great way to introduce Catherine to dance. Last night they had their dance recital. Nothing fancy or complicated here--each class did 2 dances, one tap and one ballet, and the entire recital was finished in less than 30 mins. My dad was reminiscing about how our dance recitals used to last for 4 to 5 hours and required hours of dress rehearsals and practices and all kinds of commotion!

Here are the sweet ballerinas waiting beforehand.

Catherine looks really grown up to me in this picture. I look at her and see what she'll look like when she's a teenager.
She's so graceful...
...and had so much fun.
Catherine loves her dance friends (a couple of whom will be at "big school" with her next year and that makes her excited).

Celebrating Easter

Happy Easter! We are so excited to celebrate our Savior and that He is alive! This week we've read the crucifixion and resurrection passages in the Bible. Catherine went with Mimi and me to the Maundy Thursday service. And we've just talked with the kids about what it means that Jesus died and rose again.

We also had a few fun Easter activities. My sister Amanda and her 3 girls came over one day and we all died Easter eggs together.

Their beautiful eggs:
After they took theirs home and the kids ate few of them at dinner that night, we decided we needed to dye some more. So tonight we dyed another 15 eggs. Catherine is very into the "nature-inspired" egg look--she made the ones that look brownish, like real eggs she says.
Mimi also made her famous sugar cookies with the kids today. The really enjoyed helping make the dough, cut out the shapes, make the icing, and decorate them. And they're very yummy!!


Marcy used to make huge batches of these cookies and mailed them to Jay when we were at Furman. It was an exciting day when he got a big tin of these cookies!
We hope you have a great Easter celebration as you rejoice in what our Lord has done for us!

Happy Easter!!

My Surprise Birthday Celebration

For the last few weeks, Jay kept telling me not to plan anything on the Saturday night after my birthday. That I'd get my birthday present then. I assumed that meant that we were going out to a nice dinner together for my birthday.

To my surprise, on Saturday afternoon Jay told me that about 15 people were coming to our house that night to have a birthday dinner with me. He had invited lots of friends from church and Bible study to spend a girls only evening here.

He even arranged for Strossner's to cater dinner. They came and set everything up. It was very yummy!

Somehow I ended up with 3 birthday cakes.....
...so my friends made me try all of them! And yes, they put candles in them and sang to me. Some of them even brought presents, although they weren't supposed to.
It was a great evening to just relax and enjoy time with friends. I'm so thankful for my thoughtful husband who planned everything. He's pretty amazing.

Anna's birthday celebration

We didn't get to do much as a family on Anna's actual birthday, so on Saturday we celebrated all together. Steve and Marcy were here (because they bought their house on Friday! more on that soon...) and Jill and her boys came over. The kids just played, we ate pizza, and had a little Easter egg hunt. Anna really enjoyed the extra birthday wishes!

My friend Deborah made Anna an adorable birthday hat, shirt, and banner. They were so cute!

Anna really liked finding Easter eggs. She wanted to stop and eat the candy out of all of them before picking up more.
The crazy crew of kids. Pretty soon there will be three more when Jill and I get together. It will be real crazy then :)
Anna loves cookies (she calls them cook-oys) so we got her a cookie cake. She wasn't sure about blowing out any candles.
But she did enjoy eating the cookie and ice cream.
Poor 3rd child--I never even wrapped her birthday presents. The big kids just took them out of the boxes they had been shipped in and handed them to her. We got her a book, a cd, a doggy backpack, and an outside water table. Jill gave her 2 books, one of which is about Princesses and she loves loves loves it. Mimi and PopPop gave her lots of cute clothes, her own sleeping bag, and a doll that hopefully she'll play with so that she'll leave Catherine's American girl doll alone. So far it's working!

We loved celebrating Anna and her birthday last week!