Another exciting milestone!

Mackenzie lost her first tooth today! She has been so excited for it to come out for at least 6 weeks now (probably longer), and has tried to be patient every time I tell her no, it's not ready yet. Well, today we were at our storage unit trying to get organized, and she bit into an apple & was so excited that it felt looser! Tom told her it would probably come out today, but I didn't want to get her hopes up, so of course I told her well, yeah, it felt looser, but it would probably still be a few days, so just keep eating the apple. Well, sure enough, she proved me wrong, and a few minutes later she came ever so calmly up to me, and said "mom, look at this" and showed me her tooth in her hand! Then she got a big smile on her face as I started hooting & hollering like an idiot about it! Yeah - we survived our first tooth coming out experience!

Drool!

For those of you that think I make up funny stories about how bad Tom is with baby "bodily fluids", I took a picture for you to understand how bad he honestly reacts!! The picture below is a picture of drool (NOT spit-up or pee mind you, but drool!) on our bed. Tom was changing Camden into his PJ's while I was busy hanging up clothes, when I heard Tom say "Oh no...he just drooled all over the place on MY side of the bed! You're gonna have to change the sheets!" So I go in to inspect, and this is what I found... it's literally about 2 inches around! You would have thought it covered half the bed & was gonna stay wet all night the way he reacted!! :) But I figured I'd take a picture for proof of just how small it really was.

Mackenzie has made the most important decision in her life!

And no.....it's not who she's going to marry. (although she's told me several times that it's going to be her best friend Trent)
On Sunday night as she was saying her bedtime prayer, she accepted Jesus as her personal Savior! She understands that Jesus died on the cross for her sins, and rose from the grave 3 days later! She is very excited that she will go to Heaven some day & see the streets of gold. Tom and I can't be more thrilled that she has made this decision!

As for other stuff that has been going on, Mackenzie had her first T-ball practice last night:

Grandma Palmer gave Jenna her first haircut! Her hair needed help, so we decided to try cutting it to see if that helps :)

And we also gave Tom a 3-hour haircut! I say "we" because it literally was we - me, his mom and his dad! The clippers were terrible, and I've never done it before, so I was slow trying to make sure I didn't mess anything up too bad, and Tom was just plain picky. So it took all 3 of us to get it done, and it took forever!!

Thunder over Louisville

We made our annual trip to "Thunder Over Louisville" again this weekend. The weather was exceptional, and we were able to sit with some friends from church again this year. These 2 pictures are from our seats where we watched the fireworks....we were literally in front row seats this year! This is the sidewalk which runs right next to the Ohio River. The guy sitting next to me said that about 3 days before, this sidewalk was under water, so that gives you an idea of just how close we were!! Once again the fireworks were absolutely phenomenal, and the grand finale just rocked like nothing I've ever seen!! Camden did pretty well. He fussed a couple times, partly because the fireworks may have literally scared the poop out of him - I had to change his dirty diaper on my lap while the fireworks were going on since that was the only light, and if you wait until afterwards, it's a madhouse, so I had no choice really :)

This was just after the fireworks started, and Camden was sitting watching them:

And this video is a little bit of what we enjoyed. Tom is the one who recorded it, so you'll hear him & Mackenzie every once in a while on it! There are actually 2 sets of fireworks going off, so Tom tends to switch the camera from one to the other quite a bit, and there are also fireworks that are set off from a bridge, so you'll see those as well. One last note is that this is NOT the grand finale! Hope you enjoy!

Ready for the sun!

I bought Camden some new shades today in order to get him ready for the summer sun! He was a little unsure about them, so we'll see how long they actually last on his eyes outside!! :)

We tried the johhny jumper again today and he seemed to like it much better than last time, as long as you don't leave him for too long in it.

All dressed up with nowhere to go

The girls decided to get their makeup out today & get all pretty. Must be blue was the color of choice today! Sorry the one of Jenna is a little blurry.

April Showers...

Snow showers that is! Well, April (snow) showers bring snowmen!! It snowed like crazy in Ft. Wayne yesterday. It was actually really pretty, but crazy! We got more snow here yesterday than we had at Christmas....
Here's Jenna outside w/her coat unzipped:

Tom and Mackenzie took the opportunity to build a snowman:

Somehow, the snowman instead of falling over, ended up leaning way over to the side after a few hours. We've never seen anything like it!

I'm glad to say that we had a nice sunny day today, so the snow has already melted away, except for a tiny bit of the snowman. But, let me share just a funny little note about yesterday's fun in the snow. Tom was so amazed at how much snow we were getting that he wanted to get pictures of the girls outside, so he just hollered for them to leave whatever they were doing & "come outside to see the snow!" Well, neither of the girls had socks, shoes, or coats on, and he was going to let them go outside like that! What was he thinking?? Luckily, I stopped them just in time & made them get socks, shoes & coats on before going out. They still didn't have hats or gloves on, and Tom let them lay in the snow & make angels. Needless to say, Jenna came in freezing cold about 5 minutes later, wrapped her hands in a warm sweatshirt & fell asleep on the couch. Mackenzie is a die hard in the snow, so she lasted longer, but she was freezing when she came in as well.

Shots! & Statistics...

Well, Mackenzie & Camden both had doctor visits today for check-ups. Both did well, and survived their shots :)

Mackenzie went first and got 2 shots in the leg, and 1 shot in the arm. She didn't cry, but giggled to cover the pain. She weighed in at 42 lbs, which puts her in the 75th percentile, and measured 42 inches, which is 40th percentile. So, overall, she is just fine. Her hearing is fine, and we may have to look into her vision...we've got to keep an eye (no pun intended) on how she does. They estimate that it's 20/40 right now. So below are a couple shots of Mackenzie's "scars"

her leg:
Camden cried for about a total of 45 seconds after his shots - all 4 of them!! Not bad, plus he had an oral vaccine for rotavirus, which I guess is new. Anyways, he weighed in at 12 lbs 7 oz, which puts him in the 75th percentile as well, and his height is 22 inches, which is only 15th percentile, so he's getting fat, just not tall :) And his head was 15 3/4", which is smack in the middle at 50th percentile!

Busy as usual..

Well, we spent a couple days in Chicago with Tom's sister & brother in law. We met the newest cousin on the Palmer side, Josie Grace. We've lovingly nicknamed the babies Bert & Ernie because of the shape of their faces: Camden's is long & skinny, Josie's is round & chubby :)

Camden has been working on his smile:

Here are the girls in their Easter dresses (although they wore sweaters to church!)

And here's Camden getting love from his sisters

After church Sunday, the girls and I headed to Springfield, Ohio to my sister's house. My parents are there babysitting, so we decided to go over there for a quick visit. The next picture is more for my sister's benefit since she's out of the country & I'm sure will be thrilled to see what the girls did to her son :) I'm sure this is probably what Camden has to look forward to as well with big sisters!!

Getting ready for Easter

The girls colored Easter eggs today, so I thought I'd share a couple pictures. Now that that's done, we've gotta get ready cuz we're headed to Chicago for a couple days! We're going to meet the newest cousin - Josie Shaffer!




Camden tried the johnny jumper the other day, and for now doesn't like it...

Mackenzie being a helper while I worked on the computer a couple days ago:

Camden smiled!

I wish I had a picture to go with this post, but I couldn't get a good picture. While I was getting Camden ready this morning, he actually smiled! I went & grabbed the camera, but couldn't take a very good picture while trying to get him to smile again....oh well, hopefully he'll do lots more smiling in the days to come & we'll get a good picture to prove it!