Love these girls!

Anna Kate loves to have her picture taken (she always asks me to take her pic), and she absolutely LOVES dance!

She’s getting so big, but if you ask her if she’s my girl or my baby, she will say my baby!!!

Anna Kate and Rose have ear infections, so we are starting antibiotics… so sad my babies don’t feel good! 

The girls have been feeling crummy all week… headed to the doctor today.

*Sometimes all three girls will cuddle with their Daddy at the same time… he loves it!

Noelle had her first school dance on Friday night!  When she and Mike (it was Daddy/daughter, Mother/son) first got there, Noelle was shy so he asked her to go hit the hearts with her purse.  She was full speed ahead after that!  She had a blast and even started a conga line! 

Emily and Noelle are such sweet little friends!  Noelle, Emily, Cameron and Jacob are the cutest classmates in the world.  The boys were sweating from all that dancing – they were hysterical!

I do not want to see her pose before dances on these stairs with any date but her daddy!

Oh by the way, she carried her purse around her wrist the entire time at the dance, and she would not have wearing closed toed shoes… she had too much dancing to do!

Anna Kate is LOVING dance this spring!  I am so happy she has her own thing!  She’s so small to be so big.  She really wants to play soccer, but she’s not old enough, and the girls are really supposed to be 3 to take dance, but I told the teacher she took this summer with her big sissy and she said she could do a trial class and see if she could follow instructions enough to be in the class, and lo and behold, she was right there in the mix trying new things, so they said she could join the class!  So here we are, smiling, and giddy for dance!  Every day she begs me to go and asks me if it’s dance day yet…

*Just for the record, I hate white tap shoes but that’s what they have to have for the recital this year, so I didn’t see a point in buying two pairs!

I wear a splint to bed every night.  No exception.  I had two reconstructive orthognathic jaw surgeries in 2001 and 2003.  My head is so full of screws, when my skull popped up on the screen after xrays at the hospital, the lab technician gasped, did a double take of me sitting right there in front of him and said, “I’m so sorry!” because you’d never guess what I’ve been through just looking at me.  I just laughed and said, “Crazy, isn’t it?”  All that is to say, the pain in my jaw joints is intense, but I have been able to manage my pain through splint therapy with an amazing TMJ pain specialist in Dallas.  That is, until last night, when we heard something weird in the garbage disposal.  I told Mike I thought there was something in there, and he reached in a pulled out half of my splint.  He saw it first and all he could say was, “Oh Melissa!” as he held it up for me to see.  It was as if my lifeline had been cut in that moment.  We were in shock.

I was an emergency patient in his office today.  I was there from 2:30-8:00… long long day, but I was thankful every minute I was in that chair because he has given me my quality of life back… the ability to take care of my children and love my husband when my future looked grim, and I had never been so sick.  I don’t talk about this very often, because when I’m being social or on the blog, it is my escape from all of this.  All this is to say that everyone struggles in their own ways, we all have pain, and we all have hope… sometimes we just have to wait for it. 

Dr. Riggs built me a temporary splint so that I could sleep tonight, and my new splint will be ready in a couple of weeks.  I am so thankful this was an accident that could be repaired… something fixable.  It’s a good reminder to count my blessings and hold them in my heart, and I hope it is for you too.  Unfortunately, accidents just happen.  Hug your loved ones, treasure them and thank God for giving you life.   At church when I was a little girl, an old man used to come up to us kids and say, “You know why today is called the present?  Because it is a gift!”  I’ve never forgotten that!

* Tons of Rose’s first birthday pics coming soon… and much more!