Its my party.... or not

In just a little less than 2 weeks, this cute face will be the face of a 2 year old!!! And from what "they" say, this will be the only time in her lifetime that her birthday will be on Good Friday. Because of this, I think we are foregoing having a party. Are we bad parents? Kenny actually has Good Friday off, so we were thinking rather than spending money on invitations, decorations, goodie bags, etc., that we are going to spend the money to do something special that day. We're probably going out of town, just don't know where yet, not far, but somewhere extra fun for her. We don't normally have BIG parties, we only invite a few kids, but I am kind of feeling guilty that I'm not having her one just because we've had one for Isabella every year. But unless Daddy takes the day off or if its a weekend, he doesn't normally have their birthday's off, so how perfect will this be. We might have a little get together with family and maybe let the kids decorate cupcakes, but no invitations, no goodie bags, no decorations (well I guess I could use the streamers I already have :) I'm actually really looking forward to this, now we just have to plan where,

AND..... for those of you who mentioned how tall my girly looks, you are correct. She just had a drs appointment last Monday and she is 35 inches tall (taller if you count that pretty curly hair :) and is in the 90th percentile for height. She is around the 25th percentile for weight, but the drs not concerned. She is a skinny little thing, but all muscle, she's my jumping bean and she can eat like a horse, so he said he's happy with how she looks. Of course, she hated him. You know how they shine that little light and ask them to look at the light -- well she would do a quick glance over to the light and then back to giving the dr the stare down. She cried, and cried, and cried when he came near her and checked her out. Then when he left and the nurse came back in she was fine -- I told the nurse "she totally trusts you because your a female, she has no idea you're bringing in a tray of shots." :) Yeah, she and mommy both cried with those. Then she got a smoothie and a little toy on the way home so she was happy again.

And here's one of the girls together, just because I think its cute and funny. Grandma (Kenny's mom) got a new thing at Christmas where she can receive e-mails from us, but not send anything. So we're trying to make sure we are sending her pictures. I just thought the girls were being so cute this night so I said "Come here, I want a picture to send to Grandma" and this is what they did.

Thanks for your prayers for our neighbor. She seems to be doing well so far. I'm sure there are times that are hard. Right now her daughter is still in town and one son lives 30-45 minutes away. Kenny and Isabella went over a couple nights ago, Isabella had drawn a picture for Ms. Carol and was begging to take it over, it was late, but Ms. Carol's door was open, so we knew they could go over. While we were at the funeral home, Carol's sister in law was talking to us and mentioned that in a couple weeks it was going to be harder for her, that once family is gone, life starts going on, that's when it was going to be hard and "maybe some extra visits from you and the girls would help." I was touched, we only talked to this lady the night we took food over, but it meant something to me that she would think my girls could bring joy to Carol and help her. Kenny told her "Don't worry, we've already talked about it." :) I told Kenny that I didn't want to be bugging her, like constantly going over, making her feel like we don't think she's doing well or anything, but that I knew when Carol normally got home from work so I can just conveniently be out in the front yard with the girls.

I told Kenny that I felt like this hit me hard, but in reality although we do love our neighbors, I know it just continues to hit me that my aunt is no longer here. Truthfully, the fact that it hits me when another person dies sounds fairly normal, some of the other times it really hits me are so random. Anyway, I've spent a good bit of time lately praying for my cousin, and not because she's not doing well or anything, but everytime I start thinking about Norma and I get sad, I try to think of others to pray for who must be really missing her. I hope that doesn't sound like I'm trying to make myself sound extra spiritual or something, its probably more of a "misery loves company", "someone has it worse than me" type of thing, I don't know I just know it helps me and maybe she as well as other family members needed that prayer at that time. The last few days my Isabella has been asking all sorts of questions and giving us her take on things :) -- of course Jack's dying has brought up all her thoughts on death. Yesterday we were on our way to my niece's birthday party and she saw an ambulance, asked about Mr. Jack, then talked about Nunu being in heaven, and I mentioned that we couldn't see Nunu anymore and she corrected me that we were going to see Nunu in heaven some day and she said "I can't wait to give her a big hug" So here I was going to a birthday party and choking back tears so I didn't go in all smeary eyed. :) Then tonight my mom and I took Isabella to the store and Isabella told us she dreamed about Nunu. Mom said "You did... we miss Nunu, wish we could see her" and Isabella said very matter of factly "I saw her, she was in my dream" then she said something about how we all will die someday (I know it sounds morbid, and quite honestly I hate that she even has experienced this) and she said "Am I going to die sometime?" and I said "Well, yes, but hopefully not until you are really, REALLY old" And she said "Yeah, like Nunu." I had to laugh! No, my aunt wasn't old, she was young, only 62. And you know why all of this makes me choke back tears, its not even just missing my aunt, its actually thinking "Oh man, I wish Norma could have heard that." :-)