Birthday Dinner Pics

I know it's taken a while to post but here are the birthday pictures from our joint birthday dinner. It was a nice night with our family. My mom gave me some books that are made from my blog for my bday. It means so much to see all of our memories over the past 3 years in book form. It's like a made a chronological book about Rachel's life unintentionally. It gave me a new appreciation for the blog so I feel like I need to make sure to put all that I mean to in it because it gives me a keepsake for the big and small moments.

Yep, She ate it all!

Emily wasn't sure what to do with the candle.

Playing with grandpa

February Recap

February was a busy month which turned out to be a good thing for us. My grandparents came to visit from Iowa and Emily and I both celebrated our birthdays. I have posted a lot of new pictures that I took with my new camera. Michael got me a very high tech Cannon camera for my birthday so we have been taking tons of pictures. Wish we would've had it when Rach was alive because she never liked to pose for us with the old cam cause she thought it took too long. Emily's birthday was the 23rd and that was also the one month anniversary of Rachel's passing. I can't believe that it's only been a month since we lost her. It seems like so much has changed and we've had to move on without her even though we didn't want to. We celebrated Valentine's day, Emily's birthday, and my birthday on the 24th. (I have more pics to post of the birthdays but Emily is crying at my leg because she wants to play with me so the pics will have to wait.) I really felt Rachel's loss so much last week. When we had the kids out in the "snow" it was hard only seeing 3 of them playing. I couldn't help but wonder what she would have thought of the birthday parties, going to Shiner, and making cupcakes. We never knew what to expect from her so it always was a surprise. We took a few family pictures but I don't even want to post them because it doesn't seem complete. I know I have to accept that but I'm still working on it. We have managed to enjoy ourselves a lot in the past month but we still miss her terribly and think of her often. Some days are easier than others. For me, avoiding being home has helped keep me busy and not sitting around being depressed. Emily has also kept us busy. She had well-baby visit at the pediatrician's office. She is a very big girl! She's in the 100th percentile for height and the 99th for weight. Michael definitely can't deny this one is his! Hopefully she won't be 6'6" like her daddy but she won't probably be much smaller than that. I have to say, it's such a relief to go to well-baby and have a healthy kid. I asked the doc how many oz. she needed to drink and what her caloric input should be. He kind of laughed at me and told me she would let me know. I do have to adjust to that because it's completely foreign to us! We're still trying to learn how to have a normal kid.

Who wore it best?

The girls have shared a lot of outfits but I think the birthday shirt is one of the most special. They each wore it on their first birthdays.

Rachel 2007

Callie 2008

Emily 2010

Making Cupcakes

Since Emily's birthday was such a cold day we decided that we needed an indoor project for the kids. I baked some cupcakes, "tuptakes" to Callie, and we let the kids decorate some of them. It worked really well and we were pleased with how they turned out. The kids had a blast doing it if you can't tell from the pictures!

Emily was more interested in eating it!

I look ridiculous in this picture but I had to show Cade how to do it about 5 times before he figured out what we wanted. I was so excited when he put the M&M on the cupcake. He can learn it just takes some patience! :)

He put 2 of the M&Ms on the cupcake!

Callie did awesome with it but she wanted to eat all the M&Ms. We finally had to switch to sprinkles.

Why can't I have more M&Ms?

Look who found the food coloring when she was cut off from the M&Ms! Talk about a mess.

Playdate for Emily's birthday

Emily got to spend her birthday with her cousins. She's been lonely since we lost Rachel and she gets so excited when they come to visit. It totally made her day. Thank God for cousins!

Snow Day! (sort of)

On Emily's birthday we got a little bit of snow. We never get snow here so it was very exciting! You can't see the snow in the pics because there was that little.:(
But the kids enjoyed being outside in it.

Becky & Sony's shower in Shiner

We finally got to meet Sony's family in Shiner. Becky and Sony are getting married in August and we hadn't had the chance to meet his family yet because all of them live in Shiner. They had a shower for the two of them. It was out on a farm and Emily had a ball! She worked the crowd and walked around waving at everyone. Luckily Sam, Michael's old neighbor, was there to follow her around and play with her- thanks Sam! We had a great time meeting Sony's family. Michael was a little bummed that the Shiner brewery was closed so I'm sure we'll have to go back to tour it at another time.

Papa showed her the animals.

Craig helped push Em on the swing because he's a big boy!

Em kept pushing this chair around while they were opening presents.

Playing with the new camera

For my birthday Michael gave me a new camera. I totally love it! The pics on the blog now should look way better with my new high tech camera!