A Monkey Birthday Party for Our Two Silly Monkeys!

   This post is a tad late...ok... A LOT late, but I think I am honestly still in denial that Camden is 1 and Alexander is 3. Since their birthdays are less than a week apart we threw them a huge joint party together! Alexander was OVER the top excited and I was really excited too about seeing family I hadn't seen in what felt like forever. We talked about it for months, planned everything to a T and woke up to this the morning of the party to this...

    Apparently Alexander is VERY allergic to something as he had these horrible welts/hives all over this trunk, legs and feet. Alexander has had hives several times before, but nothing like this.  We didn't know WHAT to do and his party was only hours away. He was moaning in pain and itching ...and we were utterly shocked. I'm usually a  "wait and see approach"  kind of Momma before heading to the docs, so we decided to give him benadryl (which by the way undoubtly makes him very tired/grumpy as one would expect) and see if it got worse. They went down a little but we kept him dosed very 4 hrs to keep his hives down for the party which was outside in June. Thankfully the weather was AMAZING. But the poor thing was miserable and I felt so bad as he had been counting down the days to his party for 3 months! And the whole time at the party I was questioning my "momma instincts" on if I made the right decision not taking him to the doctor...wondering the whole time if we would end up in the ER that night. All in all he was as happy as he could have possibly been given the circumstances and I tried to smile and act like I wasn't honestly worried to death about him! ;)
     Even though circumstances weren't as planned, we still had a great time! We got to see lots of family, eat good food and the boys were blessed beyond measure with wonderful gifts!  It was so good to see faces that I hadn't seen in almost a year due to all the circumstances with Camden's LM. I wanted to run up and hug each person over and over again...and I think I actually might have hugged a few people like 3 times...sorry about that! ;) We kept the party pretty short as we didn't really want Alexander to get to hot and were unsure of honestly what was going on with him.  Alexander talks about his monkey birthday party every day and about all the family who were there and how he loves all his new presents! He also wants to know if his next birthday is here yet so we can get more presents!? lol  Thank you, thank you, thank you to all the family who helped us go bananas for the boys birthday! Here is a little glimpse of our Birthday fun!

 

 

                                                        

Happy 4th ya'll!

   We had the most A-M-A-Z-I-N-G 4th of July ever this year doing simply...nothing. We spent the day as a family enjoying each other's company in the baby pool, sprinkler and grilling out. We couldn't help but be thankful as our last 4th of July was spent watching an apnea monitor and feeling sick to our stomachs after just bringing home a baby we thought we had no idea how to take care of. But our God is SO good and here we are are a year later blessed beyond measure and this 4th of July was just a reminder of how blessed we truly are.
   The boys spent the day splashing in the baby pool and Alexander ran around in the sprinkler most of the day too. Nothing brings my heart more joy than watching my boys giggle while playing together. I love to watch them play together..it's those moments during the day that I thank God for my babies, my boys, my miracles, my gifts.
    After hours of water fun, we ate a slammin' dinner made by chef Dadda that all of us gobbled up in a matter of seconds.  I was super excited to watch Camden gobble up Ant's homemade burgers, as it has been a struggle to get him to eat any table food but he was a fan for sure! Props to Dadda! ;) After dinner Alexander made his jello American flag, which wasn't the prettiest, but boy was he proud of himself! He loved every minute of it and ended up eating straight from the glass bowl. Camden loved the jello flag also, double success!
    Ant and I ended the night side by side cuddled up on the couch watching fireworks on TV and hoping all the crazy people setting off local ones wouldn't wake are sleeping darlings. No we didn't do anything extravagant and no we didn't see any fun parade or crazy firework show...but our day was absolutely terrific and we enjoyed every moment of just being together celebrating our freedom.  I hope everyone else had a wonderful 4th of July also. Our freedom is a true blessing...one never to be taken for granted! Special thanks to all who serve to provide such a huge gift, freedom. You truly are heroes!