Joyful, Joyful: January 2013

Thursday, January 10, 2013

Bath Time

Sally

Mary Kate

Mary Kate looking upside down

Sal

Mary Kate

This post is a little out of order because I could not find my camera battery charger and my camera was dead. I wrote earlier about how my great grandparents and great aunt made the trip to Memphis from San Antonio, TX to be here for the twin's baptism. It really meant so much to me that they worked that hard to get here! They were so sweet with Sally and Mary Kate, and it was a joy to watch them meet and interact with the girls during their time here. I love them so much and I am so thankful for these memories.

Grandmary and Mary Kate

Dado and Sally

Aunt Jean ("JJ") and Mary Kate

We made a trip to the Peabody to look at all the beautiful Christmas decorations.

Dado talking to Mary Kate. The girls loved Dado's little noises he made to them.

Grandmary and Sally

Grandmary with Mary Kate (L) and Sally (R)

Aunt Jean with Mary Kate (L) and Sally (R)

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

6 months old

I am LOVING the girls being 6 months old. All the time, I wish I could freeze time. Their little personalities are developing so much. They are smiling all the time and it melts my heart. They know Ford and me when we walk in the room. They are rolling over from tummy to back and starting to roll from back to tummy ( we are working on this). They are sitting up GREAT! They are giggling and laughing when we tickle them or when we sing to them ( I act like a fool a lot around these two singing and dancing. Sometimes I think they wonder how they got stuck with me.) I just can't get enough of them! Now, let me interject and say life is not perfect. I have struggled with the idea of a blog because I don't want to seem like life is always perfect. It is not. By 2 pm today, Sally was on her third outfit! They cry and we have hard days. Motherhood is hard work for sure, but I would not trade it for anything. I have been trying to "find my place" for awhile now, and I have found it. I feel so blessed and so thankful to be these baby girls mom. When I thought about writing this blog, one title I had thought of was "A Beautiful Mess". Life right now is messy- my house is messy. I can't stay on top of everything like I would want to. But life is BEAUTIFUL! The Lord placed the desire in my heart to be a mom a long time ago, and He made me wait and trust Him to fulfill that desire. My heart is FULL and my desire has been fulfilled above and beyond what I can imagine. I feel like I owe so many people so much because so many prayed for us to have children and God answered those requests. Here are some fun pictures from around their sixth month of life.

Mary Kate left, Sally right

Mary Kate left Sally right

Delta

We have a two year old golden retriever named Delta, who we love, but who requires a lot of attention. Due to the fact that we now have twin daughters, Delta has taken a back seat to say the least. We have had several really sweet moments though where I have seen how Delta is going to leave his mark on our family. Mary Kate, especially, has really begun to notice Delta. She sticks her hand out a lot reaching for him and she follows him around the room. She laughs when he licks her. It is really sweet. So, despite the mud he tracks in and the dog hair and the barking, I know Delta is going to be great for the girls. Here are a few pictures of him with the twins.

Delta watching over the babies as newborns

Delta licking Sally

Daddy making girls laugh

These girls ADORE their daddy! The light up when he walks in the room. Here is a sweet video of him kissing and tickling them last night. Thankful they get to grow up with such an amazing father.

Monday, January 7, 2013

The Girls Baptism

Sally and Mary Kate were baptized on December 23, 2012 at Independent Presbyterian. It was such a special day for many reasons. I have been thinking about the day our babies would be baptized for a long time. It has always been such a special day to me, and I know I will remember this day for forever. When we were praying so long for children, I prayed countless times that if God would give us children, they would be His and we would give them back to Him. Ford and I, on our 7th anniversary, went to the IPC and knelt and prayed that God would give us babies. About a year and a half later, we were baptizing our children in the same spot that we asked the Lord for them.
Besides being able to baptize our girls and dedicate them to the Lord, the day was special for a number of other reasons as well. Both of our fathers, the girl's grandfathers, took part in the baptism. They each baptized one of the girls. What a special moment to see our dads placing the water upon the heads of our children. I am so thankful for both of these men in our lives and in our daughters' lives. We also had some extended family come in to town for this special day. My grandmother, who both girls have part of her name in their name, and my grandfather and my great aunt were able to meet Sally and Mary Kate for the first time. I was close to my great grandfather growing up, so it is really special to me that my girls get to know their great grandparents and their great aunt. My grandmother is obviously very special to me and to Ford since both girls have part of her name.
Lastly, both of the girls dresses came from a dear friend of the family, Mrs. Deyoung. She had bought these dresses 40 years ago hoping someone in her family would have twins. She gave them to Martha, Ford's mom, to give to us to use for the girls. She bought them in York, England and they are over 100 years old.
Here are some pictures from this special day! Thank you Lord for these indescribable gifts.

Mary Kate (L), Sally (R)

Our family... Sally (R), Mary Kate (L)

The Norton Family (Mary Kate (L), Sally (R))

The Norton Siblings

The grandfathers with Sally (L) and Mary Kate (R)

The Williams Family with Sally (L) and Mary Kate (R)

Williams siblings

Here is Sally in her baptismal dress

Here is Mary Kate in her baptismal dress

Mary Kate fell asleep in Martha's arms during lunch. Here is a picture of the back of the dress.

3 Generations

The girls were given these add a pearl necklaces for their baptism. Each year, they will be given a pearl on their birthday. I love these pictures of them in just their bloomers and pearl necklaces. Sally was loving the photography session so she got a lot of pictures taken.

First Christmas

So, I wrote my first blog post and then I got overwhelmed thinking about going back and recapping the first six months of my girl's lives. SO much has happened and so much as changed and I did not want to forget any moments. This seemed to paralyze me in terms of blogging. I made the girls and our families a book for Christmas that included the girls first 6 months of life. Since they will have this book to look back on, I decided to pick up the blog where we are right now in life. Maybe, hopefully, I will be able to go back and blog about how the Lord met each of our needs through our longing to have babies. That is a huge part of my testimony and one that I want to give the Lord all the glory for. For today, especially since I hear rumblings coming from the nursery, I am going to blog about the girl's first Christmas.

2012 Christmas card

I was a little nervous about how the holidays were going to go, but the Lord met every need. We had such a sweet first Christmas with Sally and Mary Kate. I know I will always look back with such fun memories of their first Christmas. This was our 2012 Christmas card and the front of the card read "Joy!". I have used the word "Joy" for both our Christmas card and their birth announcement because that is how my heart feels regarding these two- such great JOY!

Colonel, my dad, bought the girls their first Christmas ornaments. This was really special to me as I love decorating our Christmas tree. I want each ornament to have a special meaning so I was so excited to get these ornaments. I cant wait for each Christmas to tell the girl's that their grandfather gave them these "first Christmas" ornaments.

These are Sally's little feet. She always crosses her feet, which cracks me up.

We did take Sal and Mary Kate to go see Santa. I know Santa is old, but this Santa was very old! The girls did really well. Mary Kate was a little concerned by the large man with the white beard. She gave him a very skeptical look and tugged on his beard a little. These outfits the girls have on are their first Christmas pajamas! This was something else I was also very excited about. I wanted them to have candy cane striped Christmas pajamas.

On Christmas Eve, we went to IPC's Christmas Eve service. It is one of my favorite services of the year. Ford came down with the flu on Dec 22 so he did not get to go to church with us. He was still in bed, but he did get to be a part of Christmas Day. We hung out at my parents house on Christmas Eve. My dad has created a Christmas Eve tradition of Bingo. It is really fun, and great prizes are involved. This year, Ford and I own Apple TV! We were pretty pumped. On Christmas day, we woke up and did our family Christmas, just us and the girls. After that, we did Christmas morning at the Williams and Christmas afternoon at the Norton's. I was a little nervous about how the girls were going to do going back and forth, but they did great. I was really impressed. It was a really fun Christmas Eve and Christmas day! We loved celebrating our Savior's birth with both sides of the family.