Thirteen Years

Today is our 13th wedding anniversary & I'm in love more than ever...with these three...

 Shelby came home for lunch one day & was on the phone. The girls had to hold his hand...

 for about 5 minutes!

13 years of marriage...two little girls & a husband who love me dearly! I AM BLESSED!

Juicing

A few weeks ago I started reading and researching about the benefits of juicing fresh fruits and vegetables. Shelby came home telling me about some friends who have both lost a lot of weight by juicing. The wife had cancer & her oncologist is the one who suggested that she start. So many fresh fruits & veggies have the antioxidants needed to fight cancer. But not only that, juicing helps us quickly absorb all the nutrients from fruits & veggies that we might lose otherwise through difficult digestion because it absorbs into our bloodstream! 

THEN, I suddenly thought about Georgia! Would she drink these juices? As I've written before Georgia Claire has some issues with textures of food, especially and fruits & vegetables. We're going to therapy where her OT is working with her on strengthening the muscles in her mouth & tongue, as well as other things. Certain textures literally make her gag. Poor baby. So, I started looking at juicers & wondering if it would be worth the money. My sister Angie sent me a text the next day, out of the blue, and told me that she was on a juice fast & had already lost 5 pounds (by the end of the 7 day fast she lost 9 pounds)! I immediately called her to tell her that I had been researching it and was wondering about GC. She told me that she makes popsicles out of the juice for her boys & they LOVE it! BINGO! SOLD!  

So fast forward a couple of weeks & I'm LOVING our juicer & the taste of the juice is INCREDIBLE! So fresh, so flavorful, so yummy! AND, I'm not the only one who thinks so! Check it out...

That's right folks, Ivy Jane & Georgia Claire both LOVE the juice! The first one we made was apple, celery, carrot & it was SO good! IJ kept saying, "Mmmmm" and GC kept giggling! 

I froze the apple, strawberry, blueberry, spinach & carrot juice and we had popsicles tonight!

 Happy girls getting their fruits & veggies and they are clueless! YESSSSS!!!!

Georgia Claire

I took a series of pictures with my iPhone the other night when Georgia Claire was having one of her laughing fits. She gets tickled and it is cuter than anything she does! She was laughing about something we had said...

 And then I tickled her chin...

 LOVE this little girl!!! Our favorite thing she says right now is "tomarder" for tomorrow. She always wants to know what we are doing "tomarder" when we say good night. She's the perfect big sister for Ivy Jane, although lately their almost two-year-old & almost three-year-old selves do make each other cry at times. Usually the tears are over a toy they don't want to share. Georgia usually tells on herself. Ivy Jane will start crying & Georgia will come in the room & say, "I hit her in the head!" or "I took the baby doll from her!" At least she's honest, right?! Ha! She's precious and I cannot believe she will be THREE in one month!!!

Ivy Jane

Oh where do I begin about my precious, strong-willed, smart baby girl?! She keeps me laughing, she keeps me on my toes, and she definitely keeps me on my knees...in prayer! My favorite thing she says & does right now is give me kisses & hugs me tight when we are rocking. If I tell her "I love you!" she says, "I love you too, Mommy!" Thank you, Lord!

This picture cracks me up...it looks like she's up to something!

 She loves wrestling with Daddy when he gets home from work...

 She loves playing with Daddy's hats...

Two weeks ago tomorrow I took the "pa pa" away. I just decided it was time (really, it was past time) to get rid of it. So, I cut the nipples on them & told her they were broken. She looked at them, tried to suck on them & then said, "broken?" I said, "Yes, they are broken. But it's ok because you are a big girl now!" She said, "I'm big girl?" Then said, "Ohhhh kayyyyyy" just like Eeyore would say it. I knew nap time was going to be interesting, to say the least. She went to sleep easily, but only stayed asleep about 30 minutes. I was cleaning the house, heard her crying on the monitor, but decided to let her cry it out. After about 10 minutes of her screaming, her cry changed to her "hurt cry" so I went to check on her. When I got to the hallway I heard her banging on her door...uh oh! She had climbed out of her crib (which is on the lowest level) & obviously fell. She had a HUGE goose egg on her forehead & a scraped nose & a bloody mouth! Oh wow, I felt like Mother of the YEAR!!! Poor baby...

I was actually wishing at this point that I had kept one paci for emergencies, but I'm glad I didn't. I actually thought about running to Target to get another one, but I'm glad I didn't. A popsicle made it all better, even though she didn't nap.

 She still LOVES to swing!

And to try her tricycle...

This pretty much sums up my little fire cracker...pink tutu and a John Deere t-shirt! LOVE IT!

She's 21 months now & is the perfect little sister for Georgia Claire. I just love how God works. She was the final piece of the puzzle for our little family of four. God knew that we needed each of our girls, and they needed us. But, the coolest part is that He also knew they needed each other! As the years go on, Georgia will be the one to reign in Ivy Jane & Ivy Jane will be the one to push Georgia to try new things! We're already seeing that with the almost two-year-old & almost three-year-old & it is awesome to see it play out on a daily basis.

Shelby turns 35

On Friday Shelby turned 35 and we were with his family to celebrate. We ate dinner at an asian place that was YUMMY! They even had chicken nuggets & rice for the girls. When I heard we would be eating out I brought along some of our "busy bags" for Georgia & Ivy Jane. They did SO WELL in the restaurant! I was SO happy! There was a lot going on & I think they enjoyed the people watching as much as anything.

Georgia Claire was so busy putting stickers on her pieces of paper that she couldn't smile...

 Ivy Jane, however, cheesed for the camera!

My love of almost 13 wedded years! I love him so much. He's such an awesome daddy & works so hard to provide for his 3 girls. I love this picture because it looks like we are on a nice little date, just the two of us! What you don't see is Shelby's grandma, his parents, and our two rugrats running around! Ha!

 See what I mean?! RUGRATS! They are so so so busy!

The famous "dinette cake"...Shelby's favorite that his mom makes...white cake, chocolate icing, with holes poked in it so the icing sinks down into the cake!

Poor Shelby couldn't enjoy supper or his cake...he ended up getting sick & got in bed, on his birthday, around 8:00. He stayed in bed all day Saturday but was able to eat chicken soup that night & bounced back quickly. He's been working SO hard lately that we think his body was just totally worn out! After he went to bed, the rest of us enjoyed some movies in the media room. Georgia & Ivy Jane thoroughly enjoyed the popcorn in their special chairs!

Georgia cannot get enough of Jules & Heather when they are around. She played with Heather's old cabbage patch doll, Christabella Mercy, the entire time we were there.

There were some HILARIOUS conversations of Ivy Jane & Georgia involving Christabella Mercy, or Mercy, as they were calling her. 

Georgia: "Ibee--Have Mercy!" (when she wanted Ivy Jane to take the doll)

Ivy Jane: "No Georgia! No Mercy!" (Ivy Jane did not want the doll)

Georgia, after Ivy Jane started playing with the doll: "Ibee--I need Mercy!"

Oh how I love my family! We ended the weekend with a stop off at Grandma & Paw Paw's and then it was home to Louisiana! Nice trip, but always so good to be home! 

Life

Since I last blogged I have no idea where the last two weeks have gone or what has happened really. I'm just a busy momma of two very busy little girls. 

We've been loving on each other... 

going round and round in the tire swing...

 playing bubbles...

 climbing (with her blanky)...

 snuggling under the "cubbers"...

 listening to music therapy...

 eating ice cream...

eating popsicles...

 drawing with sidewalk chalk...

 playing with play dough...

 playing dress up with Caroline...

 LOVING playing dress up...

 and holding hands...

Thank you, Lord for the life you have given me with these two girls!