Happy Birthday Times 2!!!

Finished! The twins had their first real birthday party today and while Sarah had a pretty good time, Sam was pretty overwhelmed, cried a lot and his grandfather had to carry him to a quiet room to settle him down a few times. Overall, we had a lot of people attending, and they all seemed to have a great time eating pizza, chocolate cake and ice cream!! :-)

The bittersweet part of the day came around 5:30 am, when Nana (my MIL) got a phone call from India letting her know that her 94 year old mother had just died. :*( I was hoping that she'd live long enough to meet her great grandchildren someday, but that wasn't meant to be. I remembered a picture I'd taken in 1995 during our visit to India for DH's brother's wedding, and found it in one of our photo albums that I haven't gotten to scrap yet...found a picture frame for it and gave it to Nana. She started crying but seemed all right, and she found a place in the living room to display it, saying her mother would 'look down on all of us and bless us'. I just know that my babies wouldn't be here today if not for this woman I'd only met a few times, and I'm thankful that God arranged for someone halfway around the world to enable me to be a mom someday! :*)

Got lots of pictures from today and some video too--way too tired to upload anything, hopefully I can put the pics up from first haircuts and Locks of Love donations and this first birthday party sometime tomorrow afternoon, should be pretty quiet here!

Sam & Sarah's First Birthday!!! :*)

I can hardly believe a whole YEAR has gone by, and now my babies--no, they aren't babies any more, but TODDLERS!!! WOW! :*) :*)

First I give God ALL the glory for blessing me not only with Sam and Sarah, but with their big sister Maya as well! Thank you, Jesus!! :*) :*) :*) I am so grateful for my wonderful blessings and I thank you a hundred times a day!! :*)

Today was their actual birthday (1 whole year ago today they were born!!! CRAZY!!!) but since most of the people we invited work, we decided to have the birthday party itself on Saturday. Since Sam and Sarah love Blue's Clues I thought that would be a good theme--unfortunately there's not much on the market nowadays for Blue! Still, I found a great deal on party supplies on Amazon.com, and I'm going to have a cake made at the local grocery store with a giant blue pawprint. Maya has some small plastic Blue's Clues character figurines, so we'll clean those up and stick them on the cake, viola! :-) Worked for Maya's second party, should work for the babies' TWINS/TODDLERS (gotta get used to saying that! :-) first birthday!

Today we had a mini-celebration with the grandparents and a small cake for Sam and Sarah. Sarah got a lovely gold chain from India from the grandparents, and a beautiful orange dress with lots of embroidery and flowery details (haven't taken pics yet, will do tomorrow). Sam also got a gold chain, plus a very handsome formal suit, jacket and all! Very nice! :-) They even gave Maya a few "Big Sister" gifts which was really nice of them to do!

This evening after the babies TWINS/TODDLERS had dinner, we had a little birthday cake for them. The grandparents were totally delighted at their reaction to the chocolate cake (took some hilarious pics, but haven't uploaded them yet) which was a BIG hit, LOL! :-) Fortunately everything cleaned up easily! Maya had a blast supervising and helping out where and when needed, she's the world's best big sister, I have to say! :-)

Tomorrow we'll be getting the house ready for the party on Saturday, Maya and I can't wait! The twins will LOVELOVELOVE it! :-)

Locks of Love, and Sam's First Haircut!

Maya got her hair cut for the third time today, and for the THIRD time is donating it to a charity called Locks of Love which uses the hair to make wigs for children who have lost their own due to diseases like alopecia and cancer. We are soooooooo very proud of her for doing this! :*)

We originally were going to wait until Maya was done getting her hair washed, styled, and blow dried, but another stylist came in and said she could go ahead and take care of Sam's first haircut (!). He did great at first, then about 3/4 of the way through he started getting upset. Fortunately Miss Dixie was VERY good at cutting hair quickly, LOL! :-) Sam's grandfather was more upset afterward, but his grandmother was delighted you could actually see Sam's eyes without hair falling in them! :-) I think he's handsome either way myself, but I'm biased. ;-)

It's hard to believe that on Thursday, two days from now, the twins are going to be ONE YEAR OLD!!!! That is probably THE fastest year EVER in my life! :-) We're having a small party on Saturday with the Blue's Clues theme--they love that show, but since it's older I had a hard time finding party supplies. Found some on Amazon though, that'll have to do! I'll post before and after pics of both Sam and Maya tomorrow, I can't find the camera tonite!

America's Tea Party at Southfork Ranch

 

Happy Birthday, America!

233 years old! May the USA be celebrating many more years of Liberty to come!
(Despite HolyO's administration trying to destroy all the Founding Fathers believed in!)

"An American Soldier"--God Bless Our Troops!!

Kleenex Alert:

Killed in action the week before, the body of Staff Sergeant John C. Beale was returned to Falcon Field in Peachtree City, Georgia, just south of Atlanta, on June 11, 2009. The Henry County Police Department escorted the procession to the funeral home in McDonough, Georgia. A simple notice in local papers indicated the road route to be taken and the approximate time.

Nowadays one can be led to believe that America no longer respects Honor and that outside of the military, no one honors the sacrifices by members of the military. Be it known that there are many places in this land where people still recognize the courage and sacrifices of the men and women in uniform. Georgia remains one of those graceful places.

The link below is a short travelogue of that day’s remarkable and painful journey. Watch this film clip if you wish to have your faith in people restored.

http://blip.tv/play/AYGJ5h6YgmE

Tough to watch. Thank God for heroes like Sgt. Beale.

Eternal-September.org (used to be Motzarella)

So out of the blue it seems AT&T decided to ixnay USENET in a few weeks--!%#$%$%%#&!!!!
>:-(

Been trying to switch everything over to a free newsgroup server called motzarella--and now *they're* changing over to eternal-september.org. Just now finished getting all the server settings correct--woohoo!! Seems to work really well!
So if you're using AT&T to read your newsgroups, give eternal-september a try! :-)

Amazing Ultrasound Technology!

They can make 3D 'sculptures' from 3D ultrasounds! So cool, I wish it had been available when I was pregnant with Maya and the twins! :-)