We've celebrated Brooke and Brecklyn's birthday by visiting Grampy and G-Jo in Missouri the last several years. Because of this, they have it in their heads that Grampy and G-Jo's house is where we must celebrate their birthday, haha. They really wanted to do that this year as well, but Grampy and G-Jo are currently in the process of moving here to Oklahoma, so the timing wasn't good for us to go there for the weekend. Even though we had initially planned to go to Missouri for the twins' birthday, Grampy and G-Jo brought a load of their things and came to our place instead (this also allowed them to address some things they needed to with the house they plan to purchase here in Oklahoma).
Brooke and Brecklyn's birthday was on a Sunday this year. Grampy and G-Jo arrived in town on Friday, February 1st and spent most of the day taking care of some business they needed to address. That evening, G-Jo and I made ham, potatoes, corn casserole, and rolls for dinner. This was Brianna's requested birthday meal.
On Saturday, February 2nd, we had a leisurely morning at home, then had hot dogs for lunch (Bren's birthday request for the second year in a row!). After lunch, I put Brooke and Brecklyn down for a quick nap because they had asked to go roller skating that afternoon. Once they woke up, we all headed to the roller rink in town for an afternoon of fun! Russ, Lisa, and Chloe Jo met us there.
Brecklyn and Brooke couldn't wait to get skates on and hit the floor! Brooke was fearless and went around and around the floor on her own. It took Brecklyn a long time to warm up to skating without an adult helping her, but she finally went all the way around by herself.
Charley was at our house playing that morning, so we invited her to come along. The big girls all had a great time skating!
Brenson is a natural on skates and had a blast!
I couldn't believe how long the little girls wanted to skate. I figured they'd be done in less than an hour, but they just kept going and going!
Brooke, Daddy, Brecklyn
Brianna and Chloe Jo
It was a pretty busy afternoon at the skating rink (who knew?!?), but keeping up with these six cuties was fun!
We invited everyone back to the house to watch the kids open gifts and eat the little girls' requested birthday dinner of roast gravy, mashed potatoes, rolls, green bean casserole, and salad. We started with the gifts first!
Since we've lived in this house, I've decorated our mantle for the kids' birthdays every year. Typically, I also decorate their doors, but that didn't happen this year. There was just too much going on, but the fireplace looked cute!
These birthday girls were ready for some gift opening!
I plan to write a whole post (or two) about how we decided to redo the kids' rooms this year instead of buy a bunch of gifts for their birthdays, so I'm not going to go into too much detail about that now. I will say, though, that it worked out just as I had planned for the older two, but not so much for the twins. One reason for this is that we didn't spend much of their decorating budget on their room because we only did paint and one new strand of unicorn garland. Also, I found a bunch of stuff clearanced after Christmas, so the budget I had left really stretched. They each ended up with quite a few gifts to open, but I only paid $2-$4 for most of it.
They were thrilled with so many gifts to open. All the kids are at a great age for celebrating birthdays!
I love these little dresses I found for them! They loved them, too (as you can see from Brooke's expression in the photo below :-).
So happy to have some Barbie stuff of their own!
After the twins finished opening all their gifts (this included a few little things from Grampy and G-Jo and a gift from the Earls), Brianna and Brenson also opened some gifts they had from Grampy and G-Jo.
I love how genuinely excited Bren was to open a shirt, haha!
And these binoculars were the perfect thing for him!
Brianna got REAL makeup (to use for play, of course), and she was thrilled!
This next photo is just too funny to me . . . Bren is so happy about Legos and Brianna is giving the balloons (which had barely brushed her head) a classic Brianna look! Lol.
Same with this photo!
I had gone to the store earlier that morning and purchased some cupcakes for us all the enjoy after dinner. Lisa used a little kit I bought to decorate them a bit before we ate them.
The {almost} birthday boy!
So excited about her cupcake!
I can't believe this child has a NINE on her cupcake!
Ready to celebrate!
I always love photos of my kids being sang to . . . they have such sweet and genuine smiles!
Make a wish, Brooke Ellie!
The baby of my babies is FOUR!
YUM!
Brooke is always a mess!
Each kid had a different color of cupcake to celebrate them!
I had to get Chloe Jo in on a photo, too, but she wasn't too thrilled about it.
Pink for Brecklyn, of course!
I was so glad that we spent Saturday celebrating the twins' birthday because they both woke up on Sunday with a fever. Brooke's was more mild than Brecklyn's, but I was so sad for my babies to be sick on their birthday :-(.
While everyone else was getting ready to go to church, I put the girls in their birthday outfits to take a few pictures. Despite having a fever and a cough, Brooke was all smiles!
Brecklyn was trying really hard to be a happy birthday girl, but she was just feeling so bad. She wouldn't even stand for the photo, and you can see it all over her face that she was sick :-(.
My twinbies <3 p="">
Brecklyn was doing the best she could, but she just didn't have it in her to give me a real smile.
We waited so long that Chris was able to meet us there to get Brooke and take her home. I really hate taking my kids to Urgent Care because there are SO MANY germs and coughing people and I just feel like they're coming in contact with so much JUNK. I told Chris to be sure and wash Brooke's hands and face and change her clothes as soon as they got home!
Once we were finally called back, we didn't have to wait long to see a doctor. The nurse was concerned about Brecklyn's breathing and her pulse ox was much lower than they like.
They pretty much immediately gave her a breathing treatment, then tested her for the flu. I was surprised when it came back negative, but the doctor said that she really felt like Brecklyn had a strain of the flu that the test doesn't detect. After one more breathing treatment to get her pulse ox up even more, a script for a steroid, and some tylenol, we were finally ready to go back home.
Brecklyn felt a little better once we got home (she at least wanted to eat a little for the first time all day), but she still mostly just wanted to lie around. Even though we had celebrated her birthday the day before, I was still super disappointed with how the day turned out. I had expected that we'd be able to go to church, out to eat, and at least have another cupcake that day, but obviously that was not at all how things went. As I was tucking Brecklyn into bed that night, I said to her, "I'm sorry your birthday was kind of terrible." She looked at me right in the eyes and said, "No mom, it wasn't. It was still my wonderful four birthday!" This made me smile, and I just love her perspective. She's absolutely right that it wasn't terrible, and I'm so grateful that she could still see the good in the day.
Happy birthday to our precious Twinbies! You two are more loved than you know!
Brecklyn was doing the best she could, but she just didn't have it in her to give me a real smile.
After just a few minutes of taking photos, I put Brecklyn back in her pjs and she just laid on the couch. She fell asleep, slept for a few hours, then woke up coughing and wheezing. With her history of having pneumonia, a fever combined with a wheezy cough always scares me. I took her temp after she woke up and it was over 103!
It's not unusual for my kids to run a high fever when they're sick, but with Brecklyn wheezing so badly I decided to take her to Urgent Care. I sent Chris a text (who was still at church with the big kids and my parents) to let him know I was taking her in.
Despite pre-registering online and not going to Urgent Care until the time the online module told us to check in, we still waited for almost two hours. Experience had told me to expect it to be super busy, so I packed a bag of snacks and things for the girls to do. Brooke was happy to play on her tablet and eat snacks.
Brecklyn did not want to do anything. So we just sat and snuggled while she slept on and off.
We waited so long that Chris was able to meet us there to get Brooke and take her home. I really hate taking my kids to Urgent Care because there are SO MANY germs and coughing people and I just feel like they're coming in contact with so much JUNK. I told Chris to be sure and wash Brooke's hands and face and change her clothes as soon as they got home!
Once we were finally called back, we didn't have to wait long to see a doctor. The nurse was concerned about Brecklyn's breathing and her pulse ox was much lower than they like.
They pretty much immediately gave her a breathing treatment, then tested her for the flu. I was surprised when it came back negative, but the doctor said that she really felt like Brecklyn had a strain of the flu that the test doesn't detect. After one more breathing treatment to get her pulse ox up even more, a script for a steroid, and some tylenol, we were finally ready to go back home.
Brecklyn felt a little better once we got home (she at least wanted to eat a little for the first time all day), but she still mostly just wanted to lie around. Even though we had celebrated her birthday the day before, I was still super disappointed with how the day turned out. I had expected that we'd be able to go to church, out to eat, and at least have another cupcake that day, but obviously that was not at all how things went. As I was tucking Brecklyn into bed that night, I said to her, "I'm sorry your birthday was kind of terrible." She looked at me right in the eyes and said, "No mom, it wasn't. It was still my wonderful four birthday!" This made me smile, and I just love her perspective. She's absolutely right that it wasn't terrible, and I'm so grateful that she could still see the good in the day.
Happy birthday to our precious Twinbies! You two are more loved than you know!
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