Piper and Felicity's birthday

We start off our holiday celebrations with Piper's birthday on December 1st.  She wanted to go out to eat pizza but then at the last minute decided she wanted Golden Corral.  Her words were, "the pizza place that doesn't have a lot of pizza but lots of other foods too and cotton candy."  We were going to go to see the lights at Wickham park like the year before but this year December 1st ended up being the day they did the light walk-though where no cars were allowed and you had to walk the park to see the lights.  Eli was having some problems walking (he ended up in the E.R. the following morning) so I knew there was no way he was going to be able to walk the three miles around the park and neither would Felicity so instead, we drove around town and found neighborhoods decked with lights and houses with light shows set to music.  She seemed plenty happy with that.  We came home and had ice cream cake (her choice).  Felicity thought the candles were awesome and grabbed one and burnt herself so she cried and it was very sad.  A few days later, we drove to Grandma and Grandpa's house to have a joint birthday party with the kid's cousin Sarah who was visiting from California.  Grandma bought a huge cake and we feasted on yummy food and spent the day visiting and opening presents.  Felicity started crying when they brought out the cake with candles because she now had a healthy fear of fire after burning herself a few days before.  We were able to have Mike call us during the festivities and he was able to watch the girls open presents from Grandma and Grandpa and from Sarah.  Felicity's birthday was a few days later.  It was a pretty normal day as far as festivities go.  The older boys had a field trip with their Science class so the rest of us stayed home and Grandma and Grandpa came in the afternoon to help around the house and visit with us.  I honestly can't remember much about the day.  I didn't even make her a cake--we just ate the left over cake that Grandma and Grandpa sent home with us (it was delicious).  She didn't seem to care.  She even seemed to be okay with the candles this time.  

I feel so blessed to have these two babies.  I've said this before but I'm so glad I decided to have more after Laila came.  I cried my heart out when I found out Piper was a girl because I was so scared to have another one.  She was such a fussy, sick, angry baby.  I wasn't positive but I had pretty much decided not to have any more after Piper.  Then I had the surprise pregnancy, followed by the miscarriage and I had decided my heart could not handle any more heartbreak or any more fussy babies to be honest.  I felt like the postpartum depression that inevitably follows was not something I wanted to experience and recover from again and I didn't want to have my hopes for a peaceful baby be dashed again.  I never had a real strong confirmation but I did so much praying and wrestling with the decision and ultimately decided to try one more time.  She was not a peaceful baby and I did have postpartum again and the recovery from that (and the move thrown in there) was hard for me but I can't imagine not having either of these girls in my family.  They bring me so much joy and I'm thankful that I decided to place my fears aside, trust the Lord, and endure the hardship that would come so that I could have what I have now.  

They are the best.