Valentines dinner with Daddy

It is our tradition to spend Valentines night with the girls. We might go out another night just the two of us but we love spending the evening with the girls. Jimmy takes care of dinner... usually some yummy side dishes from Central Market and then he will grill some salmon or steaks. This year it was salmon which is my fave!! Anna and I take care of the table, which we like to set with lots of pink and red.

Jimmy also always gets cards for the girls and I and pretty roses. This year Anna and Serene got beautiful red carnations and I got a gorgeous bouquet of light pink roses... I don't really care for the traditional red roses so Jimmy always picks a different beautiful color each year. He also got us each a little bit of chocolate for our special evening.

The grown-ups had creme brulee for dessert and Anna had a cupcake with roses and heart sprinkles from Central Market. It was such a fun night and I know Anna loved it. Someday Serene will enjoy it as well!

Me in Kindergarten

Top row, second person


Thanks to my friend Tara from Temple Christian School (26 years ago) for posting this on facebook! Brings back fun memories!!

Valentines party with Emma and Reese

Friday we had a little Valentines party here at the house for Anna and her friends Emma and Reese. We had a really fun time making Valentines with stickers, making Valentine necklaces with beads and of course decorating some Valentine cookies with icing and sprinkles! The girls played and we all had a really special time with friends! I also threw in a picture of my heart shaped sandwiches because of everything those were my favorite part! Thanks to Rebekah, Emma, Rebekah's sweet mother, Lindsay and Reese for coming and making our party so much fun! We had a blast!!

Feeding the ducks

Last Saturday we went to feed the ducks, which is one of Anna's favorite things to do as a family. This was Serene's first time to participate and since she LOVES animals she went nuts screaming when she saw the ducks... you know that extremely excited scream babies do! =) However, when it came to feeding them she was a lot more interested in feeding the bread to herself than to the ducks.

I love our weekends together. Jimmy is such a good daddy always thinking of fun things like this to do with the girls. These are the very best times of our lives!

MRI

Waking up a little hung over

Daddy and "Reenie"

Tiny hospital gown

Hating the tiny blood pressure cuff on her leg.. she did not like when it got tight

Yesterday morning we took Serene to Children's Medical Center in downtown for her MRI. We were nervous but everything went perfectly. They were so kind and really took great care of all of us. The only hitch was that we had to end up waiting about an hour and a half which was hard on Serene because she had not eaten since the night before and was getting really hungry asking for "bite bites"... but she finally got tired enough of waiting that she fell asleep in my arms on the hospital bed waiting to be taken back. The Anesthesiologist thought it was funny that when he came to get her to sleep she was already knocked completely out.

Once they brought her back it took a while to get her awake because this girl can sleep. They told us that babies usually wake up from the anesthetic before they even get them rolled back to the room but Serene took about 30 minutes to even move a muscle. They had to take all the warm covers off her and put cold hands on her face to finally shake her out of it. She is like her daddy... she loves to sleep! =)

We also expected to wait for at least a week or so to hear results but were shocked to get a call from our doctor... the amazing Dr. Laura Klesse within only about an hour of getting home. She told us the incredible news that Serene's brain and optic nerves are PERFECT! That is the absolute best news we could have EVER gotten! I started crying like a baby when I got off the phone to tell Jimmy what the doctor had said. I just buried my face in his chest and cried... it was just such relief. We have been waiting since around October when we got the diagnosis to find out if her brain was ok. Peace and relief swept over me when I heard the news... overwhelming thanks to our God! We are sooo grateful to the Lord that she is so perfectly healthy even with the NF diagnosis! Thank you Lord!!

We will go back this November for another check-up and possibly another MRI. Then in the years to follow she will most likely only need vision screenings with occasional MRI's to watch out for any sign of tumor growth.

We are sooo grateful for Dr. Klesse and how kind and quick she is to help. She is very informative and has been so encouraging to us about the NF diagnosis! She is the doctor we prayed for!

We are also incredibly grateful to the many many people who have prayed us through this tough time. People we never even met before have been praying for our sweet little girl and for us. Thank you to each person who took time to lift us to the Father... we are forever grateful!

Here are a few pics of our sweetie at the hospital.

MRI tomorrow

Serene is having her MRI at Children's Medical Center in Dallas tomorrow at 8:00 AM. Any and all prayers are greatly appreciated!!

For all the doubters

I had several people who didn't really believe that at 13 weeks you could accurately tell the sex of the baby and that we might be in for a shock when we went back at 20 weeks. However, it's official, it's a boy. No doubt about it... 100% boy!

He is perfect. He was squirming around far more than either of our girls were on their ultrasounds and it took a while to get all the pictures they needed to check everything out but finally they saw all the necessary parts and his heart, brain and various other organs are just right!

It never gets old seeing the ultrasound and watching that little alien looking being happily swimming in their special little world! It's especially new and different this time since it's a boy. So CRAZY... I can't believe we are having a little boy.... WOW!

We did it....

We put the FOR SALE sign out this morning... WOW! I can't believe we actually did it. We have talked about it for a year since Jimmy started working in Plano (an hour commute one way from our house) but we finally felt the Lord was saying this was the right time and as of about 7:00 this morning our house is officially for sale.

As Jimmy walked the sign out the door to put it in the ground we simultaneously looked at each other and smiled... I think it was a smile of excitement for the future because we feel so strongly this is the road God is taking us down.

Where will we go once the house sells? Well our heart is for a HUGE yard with trees for the children hopefully in Colleyville or Southlake BUT, God knows best what we need for our growing family and we want His perfect will for our lives. There is no way we could scheme a better plan than His.... so for now we wait... but we wait with joy and hope knowing this is going to be the next chapter in this amazing life God has given us as a family.