A Tearful But Joyous Wow!!!

You all remember Aubrey? I wrote about her in February. She is Mike's first cousin once removed (that means she's his cousin, Michelle's, daughter). Anyway, she has been battling liver cancer that was diagnosed about 2 weeks before her first birthday. Now, she's about 15 months old and has a CANCER FREE liver!!! And that's a WOW! I cried when I heard the news Saturday that they had been called to the hospital because a liver had become available. I can't even imagine the emotions of the immediate family. I'm so thrilled for them. So, it's tears of joy but also tears of sadness for a family in Philadelphia who has loved and lost someone so precious who was able to leave behind this gift for Aubrey.

So, Aubrey received a liver transplant in the wee hours of Saturday night and into Sunday morning. She's been recovering well and faster than anticipated which will hopefully cut her previously expected 1 month hospital stay down to only 3 weeks. Prayers are still needed to make sure her body continues to accept this new liver. Previous CAT scans reveleaed that the cancer was contained to the liver, so by taking out the liver and giving her a new one, it would seem that the Bowden family has kicked the cancer out!!!! They will give Aubrey a few more rounds of chemo just to be sure that they got it all, but they could be nearing the end of a bumpy, exhausting road.

Keep praying for them. God Bless.

Little Gym Show Day

They open every class with a song about shaking your bells, and the girls absolutely love it.

Then we do some group activities each class. For Show Day, we got to play with the parachute (below). Kaitlyn was the first one on! She loved it. Nicole liked most of it. Truth be told, she gets a bit fussy at LG these days if they aren't doing her favorite things.

And here we have Nicole's FAVORITE THING...the rings!!! She LOVES these. She also loves the bells (from above) and the balls (which are later), so you can see a noticeable smile on her face with those activities. If it's anything else, it's hit or miss as to her mood that day. Kaitlyn, on the other hand, seems to enjoy the entire class no matter what. Let's hope Nicole is just in a phase.

An action shot of Kaitlyn letting go of the rings, and sister waiting immediately in the wings to take her turn back on the rings!

And here we got to play with the balls toward the end of class. Great throw Nicole. That red ball was what she threw. Maybe we should be signing up for tee ball!!! She's got an arm.

And then it was time for bubbles...another favorite. Ok, so Nicole does like a lot of the aspects of Little Gym, but when she's not enjoying it, boy do you know it. I guess that's why the bad stuff just sticks out in my head.

Finally time for the medals. Yippie!!!

SOS

I cannot believe the girls turn 2 in just over one month's time! And what's more scary is that I do NOT have a party theme yet!!! AH!!! HELP!!! I've got to get invitations out soon and start looking around for party supplies and party favors, so I've got to get my theme in order soon.

OK, so here's what we've considered so far, and nothing just sticks out as a winner for various reasons:

1) The girls love the aquarium and fish (Nemo in particular) and the aquarium does parties, but we looked into the cost and it's just not practical. I suppose we still could do Nemo, but that seems like such a narrow theme...is there enough I can do with that?
2) Mickey Mouse. The girls love everything Mickey, but Ceylese did Mickey for Mackenzie's second birthday, so that's been done at this age in my family. Yes, I know I shouldn't care, but I do.
3) Sesame Street is out because we did that last year.
4) Jungle/animal theme. The girls love animals. So, we were thinking just about doing some general kind of animal theme. This is probably my fall back so far unless we can come up with anything else fantastic soon. My fear with this theme is that I won't be able to find decorations and favors that are just general animal theme.

So you see my problem? Any suggestions or thoughts?

Playing Dress Up

They own these Cinderella dresses. They were a bit big, so we had never used them before. Well, Joanna thought to try them one day and took these photos. They're SO cute. I'm sorry I missed it. We'll have to play dress up again sometime when I'm around.

We've taught the girls to "give your sister a kiss." Priceless....

Zoo

We went to the zoo on Sunday. The girls slept until NINE THIRTY Sunday morning, so needless to say, we got a LATE start. (I love that!!! I hear about kids getting up at 6:30am, and it makes me shudder. I know it's coming one day when they're school age, but I'm loving this phase right now.)

Since we got there so late, we didn't stay too long since we had to get back for lunch, nap, etc...but, we got annual passes, so no pressure. We can come back whenever we want. For those of you keeping track, that rounds out the Atlanta season pass experience for the Barbree family. We now have Aquarium, Six Flags, White Water and Zoo!!! I keep saying, it's super easy to do that now becuase we're only paying for me and Mike. When we have to start buying passes for the girls, it will be another story. So, we'll enjoy this while we can.

Below are some photos from the petting zoo first. The girls really enjoyed this.

And here are our little Lions...